is critically dependent on its IT systems, as the Trust has almost completed scanning 50 million pages to ensure that it can get rid of all of its paper records and have a fully operational electronic patient record system.

The Trust has two large datacentres on site, made up of HP and Dell servers, both highly virtualised using VMware hypervisors. It also has over 3,500 devices, which includes desktops, laptops, iPads, wall mounted computers and Windows slates.

Director of IT services, Ward Priestman, needed to drastically improve the log on times for users from minutes to seconds due to the critical nature of the Trust's technology infrastructure.

"If we were without our IT systems we would have to declare a major incident and pretty much stop seeing patients. We are that dependent on IT," Priestman told Computerworld UK.

"We currently have 3,500 devices and 4,000 staff. The clinicians move around the organisation treating patients, and the big issue we were facing is that it took so long to log onto a device. It could be anything from a minute to over five minutes if they had large profiles," he added.