The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust has awarded a contract worth in the region of 80,000 to Salford Software for the provision of Novell Identity Manager - a system, to manage the identity of its 6000 staff across all four of its sites and its many internal IT systems.
The primary function of the new contract will be to provide staff with single sign-on using Novell SecureLogin - allowing them access to the different systems within the Trust, based upon their identity and level of access.
At present, there are around 100 internal systems across the Trust that may require differing usernames and passwords to be entered in order to gain access - creating an enormous burden on administration and the IT Service desk.
Approximately 500 passwords are reset each month when they are lost or forgotten - and that's on top of 250 new user account creations which are provisioned manually within a ten day service level agreement.
"The long term aim of the implementation is to remove the need for multiple usernames and passwords and ensure that the user experience is simpler and that staff can use self-service functionality to reset them where necessary, said James Rawlinson, Assistant Director of IT Service Delivery, Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust.
"The new system will also take control of the identity of each member of staff, or indeed other authorised users who require access to the systems, and ensure that resources are provisioned based on the identity of that person."
Integration with the national NHS HR system (eSR) will ensure that when a resource joins or leaves the organisation, internal systems are triggered to add / change / remove the user - for example, various internal staff directories, Trust wide Patient Administration System and corporate Microsoft Active Directory system.
Where systems cannot be automatically integrated, Workflow functionality will flag messages to systems managers in order to increase security. Central control of roles and policies to manage access rights ensures that the correct level of security is in place across the organisation reducing unnecessary costs and hidden security threats.
By reducing complexity to the user, the business benefits can be seen through a reduced load on the helpdesk, reduced administration in user management and the quality of data which is held on Mid Yorkshire's systems can be significantly improved.
Once in place, this information flow will be extended to provide additional services to the staff and be integrated with the organisation's remote access / portal service.
"This is a key win for Salford Software demonstrating our strength in providing Identity Management solutions for the NHS and other public sector organisations, said James Doggart, Managing Director, Salford Software.
"We're delighted to be working with Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust to provide single sign-on for its employees. It will make life easier for staff when accessing the many internal systems, but will also reduce the burden on administration and IT when adding new users and removing ex-employees."
"We're delighted to see yet another NHS trust benefiting from the strategic partnership with Novell and NHS Connecting for Health," said Mark Shaw, Novell NHS Account Manager.
"The Solution takes advantage of the Novell Enterprise Agreement that was signed with Connecting for Health in 2005, enabling Mid-Yorkshire to benefit from licenses purchased centrally for Novell Identity Manager and Novell Enhanced SmartCard Login (NESCM) as well as full product training."
About Salford Software
Salford Software is a leader in the provision of Identity Management, Secure Remote Access and Print Accounting systems. Salford Software offers a range of excellent services including consultancy, project management, technical support and training and is able to provide customers with an end to end business solution.
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