NHS body upgrades dated email archiving processess

Two Shires NHS Ambulance Service has installed email management software to properly manage and archive messages sent to and from its 400 staff.

The NHS body says the management system – supplied by Archive One – is alleviating enormous pressure on its email server caused by large volumes of mail waiting to be archived.

Russell Wilson, Two Shires’ senior IT support analyst, says before the archiving system was installed, the organisation relied on its employees to archive their old emails into personal storage files (PSTs).

‘Those PST files would hopefully remain on the server, but more often they would disappear into their own computer somewhere,’ said Wilson.

‘That would make it very difficult for us to track and retrieve emails when we needed to. We had no idea where the emails were being archived off to.’

The system now goes through each employee’s mailbox daily and archives everything that has been in the system for more than six months, says Wilson.

‘It puts those emails into the central repository, which is located in a different place to the email server, so that it takes the load away from that system,’ he said.

The new system will also allow the Two Shires NHS Ambulance Service to respond more quickly to requests made by the public, under the rules of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act.

‘Because that central repository has a database format, the emails are searchable and retrievable for key word searches. So, if and when we do get the FoI requests, they are very easy to find,’ said Wilson.

‘The Act means that members of the public can request that any information we have that might be of public interest be kept in a way that means it can be accessed easily,’ he said.