I’ve collected together some information about my work over several years on WiFi in the NHS
NHS WiFi Programme
- I’m currently Chair of the NHS Digital WiFi Programme Advisory Group, which is advising on the introduction of pan-NHS free WiFi for staff and patients. Below are some resources explaining more about the Programme, which is in Domain A of the NIB Workstreams.
- NIB Launch: https://www.england.nhs.uk/2015/06/nib/
- Martha Lane Fox recommendations: https://www.england.nhs.uk/2015/12/martha-lane-fox/
Articles in the press regarding WiFi and the NHS
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35147380
- http://www.digitalhealth.net/infrastructure/47053/hunt:-tech-money-to-go-on-free-nhs-wi-fi
- http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/What-is-stopping-the-NHS-rolling-out-Wi-Fi-access
- https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/dec/21/every-nhs-building-free-wifi-technology
NHS WiFi Survey (unofficial)
For 3 consecutive years (2013, 2014, 2015) I ran an NHS WiFi Survey, asking clinicians and other staff in directly patient-facing roles what their experience of WiFi access was in their place of work. This work was done following a conversation on the NHS Hack Day mailing list, in which there was a difference of opinion about what level of WiFi availability there was in the NHS, and we found that there was no existing data about this. So we created a survey to help answer the question.
The TL;DR is: In 2013 about 22% of NHS staff who responded to my survey had access to free WiFi. By 2015 this was getting to around 50%. These figures are now probably out of date, but they are actually the only data available on Staff WiFi in the NHS!
2013
- Detailed information including the questions used, results, mapping created from the data, and more: May 2013 National NHS Staff WiFi Survey sfasfaefa
- Discussion about the survey on NHS Networks
2014
- Detailed information on the 2014 NHS WiFi Survey
- My presentation about the survey in the Skunkworks at EHI Live 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcGu7kMHz-I
- Slides from this presentation
2015
- The 2015 survey got somewhat swamped by some of my other work - another survey - this time the Clinical Software Usability Survey. Hence the numbers for the 2015 WiFi Survey were tiny, and probably didn’t add much to the existing data. You should probably ignore them. I did a new presentation at EHI Live 2015 with a summary of the 2013-2015 findings