A deal negotiated by NHS England will mean all NHS workers, including doctors, nurses, clinicians and support staff, can benefit from the full suite of Microsoft 365 workplace productivity apps, making collaboration easier and maximising time for care.
In the past, each local organisation would be responsible for purchasing their own licences for software. By using a single national contract, the NHS is taking advantage of its collective purchasing power to save millions of pounds, as well as ensuring organisations are all working on the same systems.
The new five-year agreement, which has been awarded to Bytes, includes access to Microsoft products and will also provide the opportunity to introduce further innovative tools from other suppliers in the future.
Since the first national deal in March 2020 made the Microsoft Teams app available to all NHS staff, users have saved more than 17 million hours of time by using it for virtual meetings, where meeting in person is not necessary.
John Quinn, Chief Information Officer at NHS England, said: “This new five-year agreement will mean we can create a platform for innovation so that NHS workers always have the latest digital tools to help them focus on frontline care.
“We’ve seen huge benefits following our original agreement with Microsoft in 2020, whether using Microsoft Teams to make it quicker and easier to arrange meetings or other digital tools that mean more time can be spent supporting patients.”