Esteem seals 'significant' Midlands-based NHS deal

Public sector specialist set to upgrade 6,000-strong network for Sandwell and west Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust

MSP Esteem has snagged a significant network project covering three hospitals and other locations for Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust.

Under the terms of the deal, which equates to a £2m investment by the Trust, Esteem will upgrade an HP network for 6,000 devices, designing, implementing and project managing the work in partnership with HP.

The project is set for completion in March next year under the NHS North of England framework agreement.

Alison Dailly, CIO at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust - which employs over 7,000 staff and looks after over 530,000 people - said: “We needed a better underlying network infrastructure to support our vision for modern digital health informatics and to reduce the cost of ownership. We wanted to create an easily managed scalable high performance network and to leverage our existing HP equipment as much as possible.

“Esteem understood our requirements better than anyone else and has made a good start. They are now helping us work with HP on completing the network design.”

Joe Connolly, CEO of Esteem, said: “Upgrading the existing HP network with new core and access switches offers Sandwell the most efficient solution for the least cost, disruption and risk. Sandwell has recognised Esteem's proven track record in delivering IT infrastructure solutions to the NHS."