Novell to Provide Security, Systems Management and Linux to United Kingdom’s National Health Service

Novell today announced a £21.8 million ($39 million) contract with the United Kingdom’s leading Department of Health agency for a comprehensive set of security, management and infrastructure solutions that will improve delivery of health services to UK citizens. The three year agreement with the National Health Service (NHS) Connecting for Health program lets NHS leverage Novell® solutions across the entire NHS infrastructure, comprising upwards of 600,000 workstations, and will result in substantial cost savings for the NHS. As a strategic partner, Novell will help the NHS deliver its National Programme for IT, improving patient care and services and transforming the way the NHS works.

“NHS Connecting for Health is leading the way in ensuring the NHS is getting the best possible deal for its IT systems and services across the board,” said Richard Granger, director general of NHS IT. “This deal with Novell also reduces the barriers for the NHS in using open source, as it secures access to an enterprise class open source platform along with, more importantly, affordable support, maintenance and training to help our NHS staff make the transition.”

The agreement will enable NHS Connecting for Health to achieve its key IT infrastructure vision for the NHS: to deliver greater consistency of IT infrastructure by rationalizing the number of products in use, standardize the approach to implementing products, and increase the productivity of staff by leveraging IT more effectively. The new IT infrastructure and systems will ultimately connect more than 100,000 doctors, 380,000 nurses and 50,000 other healthcare professionals, benefiting more than 50 million patients in England.

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