UCLH aims to save £1.2m with managed print services

University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) has announced a seven-year deal with Xerox managed print services through which it aims to save £1.2m.

The deal, part of a wider project by Logica to create an intelligent back-office infrastructure for the Trust, means that UCLH will now have only one print supplier to manage. Before this contract, the Trust was managing 53 separate print vendors.

The deal will involve replacing approximately 3,000 printers and over 100 copiers and fax machines with 300 networked, multi-functional devices and 1,100 printers.

As a managed service, Xerox will provide the Trust with data on devices, document printing and associated costs. The Trust will be able to fix device faults remotely and replace consumables such as toner before they run out.

Further efficiencies will come from recharging printing costs internally to departments for the first time. UCLH expects this print governance to help standardise costs and promote better practises, such as motivating users to scan rather than print to keep costs down.

James Thomas, ICT director for UCLH explained that the Trust has been able to reduce the number of devices it operates by examining their usage. "By identifying all of the active printing devices in the Trust, we uncovered a number of machines that were not being properly utilised and were sometimes more like status symbols than office tools.

"We're using this project to help change behaviours across the Trust, and, as a result, increase back-office efficiency and achieve our cost-saving targets," Thomas added.

As the Trust's workforce grows increasingly mobile, it hopes to benefit from Xerox's mobile print service, which is being launched across UCLH's campus. Staff will be able to securely print business-critical information directly from their hand-held mobile devices anywhere on campus.