Getting NHS buy-in for PSN is a headache, says experts

NHS buy-in to the Public Sector Network (PSN) in the UK is being stymied by fixed ideas around patient data security, central funding of the N3 network and a distributed governance structure, according to several key players within the PSN who were speaking at a roundtable this morning.

The PSN is a collaborative network that ultimately aims to see all local services within a fixed geographical region provided over the same data infrastructure.

The PSN has been mandated at a central level by government CIO Joe Harley, and is being pushed at a local level by local authority body Socitm, among others.

Many local authorities have already established PSN services, including Kent, Staffordshire and Essex.

However, all attendees at today's roundtable agreed that getting the NHS involved in discussions around the PSN is a headache.

Jon Browne, technical lead at Yorkshire and Humberside PSN Project, explained that the problem limited the potential cost savings achievable and that NHS involvement would give them far more clout.

"As a county council we currently bid for approximately £12m in services whenever a contract is up; however, with buy-in from the health trusts we would be submitting bids for approximately £18m. We would benefit from bigger economies of scale if they were on board."

Jason Peach, head of professional services at infrastructure support services firm Networks First, explained that one potential hurdle for suppliers and councils looking to get the NHS on board is that the NHS is driven by ethical considerations around handling patient medical records.

Brown agreed: "They don't tend to see patient records as citizen records, and so are frankly unwilling to merge services."

The Kent Public Sector Network serves every public service except health - including district authorities, county council, education establishments (colleges and schools) fire and rescue and the police service. And it has done this by aggregating the services onto the UK's education and research network, Janet, which provides two 10Gb pipes to the area.

Jeff Wallbank, partnership development manager for the Kent PSN, said he had been trying to engage with the health community around shared services for 25 years.