PRESS RELEASE
Release date: 17th November 2014
C24 provides busy call system for emergency services
West Midlands Ambulance Services (WMAS) has invested in a new on premise Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution from global hosting managed service provider C24.
The solution, which has been purchased via the Government’s G-Cloud framework, will underpin the 999 Dispatch and Patient Transport Applications at WMAS and allow the Trust to continue to deliver high levels of emergency and urgent care to support the public. The new service will allow WMAS to retain its existing IT infrastructure on site, with a C24 hosting wraparound service.
West Midlands Ambulance Service takes almost 3,000 999 calls every day, covering an area of 5,000 square miles and a population of over five million. With so many patients making contact with the Trust on a daily basis, a secure IT infrastructure with reliable hosting is essential to keeping the Trust running at maximum capacity. C24’s enterprise solution delivers reliability and high levels of availability for WMAS by implementing a flexible, yet robust infrastructure layer comprising of HP Bladesystem and HP 3PAR storage technologies.
Phil Smith, Head of ICT Services at WMAS explained: “We pride ourselves in the quality and robustness of the technologies we deploy to support our critical functions, which ultimately leads to safer patient care. We were the first UK Ambulance Service to fully deploy a multi-site ‘virtual’ contact centre. By continuing to build on this highly resilient and high performing platform using the latest ‘proven’ technologies we will continue to provide the highest quality service and care for all our patients.
The UK government’s G-Cloud framework allows public sector organisations to call off services without needing to run a full tender or competition procurement process. It is a purchasing option growing in popularity, with the government revealing that over £50 million worth of equipment was purchased through G-Cloud frameworks as of February 2014. Public Sector organisations are being actively encouraged to purchase cloud services over hardware infrastructure as part of the UK government’s cloud first policy, which was launched in 2013 to help drive wider adoption of cloud computing in the public sector. West Midlands Ambulance Service’s decision to choose an on premise private cloud solution combines the benefit of locally managed systems with the flexibility of a cloud procurement and deployment model, creating a flexible and secure hybrid IT environment.
Paul Hemming, Managing Director at C24 said: “When tailoring our solution for West Midlands Ambulance Service we recognised the importance of security and high levels of availability for the Trust. Recent high profile outages and attacks experienced by other Public Cloud providers demonstrated that there was a critical need for an enterprise level, private cloud solution located locally at WMAS’ premises.”