Automation could save NHS £40m a year, says hospital CIO

The NHS could save £40m a year by implementing an IT automation system as an alternative to desktop virtualisation, according to the chief information officer (CIO) for Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust and Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundations Trust Liverpool.

Dr Zafar Chaudry said that following the implementation of Kaseya's IT automation platform, the Trusts have seen a dramatic improvement in efficiency; with the support team's average response time reduced from seven days to 24 hours, with many support issues resolved in less than 10 minutes.

He said that maximising productivity for both engineers and end users can substantially cut costs, arguing that when the downtime per user is reduced by one minute per person per day, the trust saves £160,000 annually.

When extrapolated across the 1 million desktops within the NHS, the service could deliver savings of £40m per year.

"In a hospital environment uptime is key to effective patient treatment, and switching to an IT automation solution yields an impressive return on investment figures for us at the Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust and Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundations Trust Liverpool," said Chaudry.