As announced at London’s ServiceNow World Forum 2022, the ServiceNow platform is powering NHS Digital, the national information and technology partner of the UK health and care system. The partnership, as exclusively reported by ERP Today, will continue once NHS Digital merges with NHS England and NHSX in 2023.
ServiceNow will help serve NHS Digital as it manages a network spanning more than 150 live services and 200-plus acute, mental health, specialist, and community trusts, connecting more than 20,000 health and care organizations and 1.5 million employees across the NHS.
The news poses interesting questions on how Oracle, a current enterprise mainstay of the NHS, fits into this picture. Recent years have seen NHS England and NHS Business Services Authority put out tenders to replace pre-existing Oracle systems.
ERP Today has reached out to Oracle for comment.
According to ServiceNow’s press release, ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM), Customer Service Management (CSM), and Security Operations (SecOps) crosses internal NHS Digital services including NHSmail, NHS Spine, and IT operations.
Cybersecurity is also included in the proposition, with Stacey Whyte, senior services manager at NHS Digital, telling ServiceNow World Forum attendees on Tuesday of the priority of “keeping patient data – all data – safe.”
Whyte also highlighted the importance of automation and AI for NHS Digital, with automation allowing for staff to carry out more “meaningful work.”
NHS Digital commissioned ServiceNow and consultancy Cognizant to develop a platform that would be scalable, manageable, and secure, while driving efficiencies and reducing complexities across its service, case, and incident management capabilities.
On the customer-facing side, NHS Digital supports issues raised by citizens trying to use NHS digital services, such as the NHS App, which gained a boost during the pandemic.
On announcement of the news, Jordi Ferrer, VP & general manager of UK&I at ServiceNow, said: “Healthcare is already complex and now it is facing some of the biggest challenges in modern history. NHS Digital recognizes that this complexity should not be pushed onto the millions of employees, clinicians, and patients that rely and depend on these services every day.”
“With the flexibility and scalability of the ServiceNow Platform, we were able to build a service management platform for NHS Digital that meets the current and future needs of the NHS network and its employees.”
