Secure messaging service for NHS

The NHS is to employ Mirapoint appliances to safeguard the confidential content of its email, calendar and directory system, NHSmail.

Mirapoint plans to extend its service protection, currently used by over 200,000 NHS staff members, to cover more than 1 million users, making this project the largest of its kind in the world.

NHSmail is part of the NHS Connecting for Health IT programme, developed to provide the organisation’s employees with any information needed to improve the service on offer to patients.

"For the NHSmail project, we needed a robust solution that would offer NHS staff an extremely easy to use messaging service while addressing their security concerns", said Danny Reeves, head of delivery at Cable & Wireless, the prime contractor for the Connecting for Health system. "Mirapoint’s approach allowed us to tailor the message to fit the NHS IT infrastructure exactly."

The Mirapoint solution offers NHSmail users a secure messaging community whereby all mail in transit is encrypted, ensuring that the service is safe to use — particularly when sending confidential patient identifiable information between NHSmail users. It also guarantees that no data will go missing within the service, as back-up copies of all messages sent and received are kept automatically.

"The NHS Connecting for Health programme is a huge undertaking, which will have a significant impact on the delivery of health services in the UK. We are pleased to have been able to provide such a fundamental part of the new infrastructure", says Barry Ariko, CEO of Mirapoint. "We are confident that this new service will continue to provide NHS staff with the messaging environment needed to better serve patients across the UK."

Mirapoint is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

Source: bjhc&im December 2006

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