Capita integrates hospital IT for Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust Pembury site

Capita has installed an integrated IT system to support an NHS Trust's move from two to one hospital.

Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust's new hospital in Pembury is the result of a £226m PFI initiative.

Capita's three-year contract, worth £3.4m, is to integrate IT systems from the old Pembury hospital and the Kent and Sussex hospital.

The IT infrastructure will update the support for medical staff with access to applications such as picture archiving and a communications system.

The ICT infrastructure will benefit patients and staff with improved bedside care. Consultants will have access to clinical applications, including PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications System) images on wireless devices. These include X-Rays, MRI and CT scans.

The wireless infrastructure will mean hospital employees will be contactable wherever they are in the hospital.

Dr George Noble, consultant physician and clinical director for IT, said: "It is fantastic to see IT coming together with clinical services and patients."

Capita has also built a datacentre that will monitor the use of energy, supporting the NHS Trust's green agenda.

Scott Gilfedder, network integration manager at Capita, said the hospital being a new build avoided some of the problems associated with projects at operational hospitals.

But he said there were challenges testing the systems as a result of delays caused by the winter bad weather.

The Telcos providing the networks, BT and Virgin Media, were unable to carry out work when and where originally planned because of snow. As a result the IT department had a shorter period of time to test systems. "We had planned for 60 days to test but we only had 10 days to test before the first patients were moved in," said Scott Gilfedder.