NHS awards Accenture cloud email service contract

20 July 2015 Consultancy.uk

Accenture and subsidiary Avanade have been awarded a contract to provide the NHS in England and Scotland with a cloud-based secure email and collaboration service. The two firms will provide the NHS professionals with access to a secure communications network, which includes, among others, VOIP, audio and video communication.

Avanade was founded in 2000 as a joint partnership between Microsoft and Accenture. In 2001 however, Accenture took full ownership of the company, as a result of which Avanade is now a fully owned subsidiary of the consulting firm. Avanade has since its founding grown by more than 20% yearly, and now has more than 25,000 professionals working in more than 70 locations in 20 countries around the world.

The deal between Accenture, Avanade, and the National Health Service (NHS) will see 700,000 health and care professionals in Scotland and England move their work email into a secure communications network. In addition, the service will further provide secure communications to non-NHS partners and patients where possible.

The service provided by Accenture through Avanade will deploy Accenture’s Unified Communications and Collaboration Managed Service (UCCMS). The service will use a number of service add-ons to its central service provision, including an enterprise-wide directory and Lync instant messaging, VOIP, audio and video communication, to enhance collaboration among NHS healthcare professionals.

“Almost 700,000 doctors, clinicians and other health and care employees already use NHSmail to communicate securely,” comments Aimie Chapple, Managing Director for Accenture’s UK health business. “The new improved NHSmail service will provide significant digital technology improvements to help NHS staff drive even more effective collaboration at all points of patient care. This will be one of the largest mailbox migrations ever delivered and will bring significant benefits to the way NHS employees exchange information, communicate and interact across healthcare.”