Lewisham Primary Care Trust (PCT) has become the first in the country to adopt a security system that combines single sign-on and biometric fingerprint authentication.

The system will be used by 300 users at Lewisham Children and Young People's Centre to make the transfer of patient information faster while maintaining tight security.

By using fingerprint biometrics, the Logicalis supplied system will alleviate the need for constant user-name and password re-issuing, freeing the trust's IT services to concentrate on more important tasks.

Donna Jarrett, director of IT for Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham Shared IT Services, says the technology will allow the sharing of infrastructure and systems for the benefit of patients and clients.

'The result will be that care records are available at the point of care. This is an exciting project for Lewisham PCT as it demonstrates the success of multi-agency collaboration for the benefit of the local population,' she said.

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Further Reading:

• Hospital gets incident report system
• NHS Trust gets document management
• NHS computer project will cost £12.4bn