Background
Queen Victoria Hospital (QVH) is a specialist NHS hospital providing life-changing reconstructive surgery, burns care and rehabilitation services for people across the South of England.
It is a centre of excellence, with an international reputation for pioneering advanced techniques and treatments. The hospital was known for its role in developing pioneering plastic surgery techniques for injured allied aircrew during World War II, and prides itself on continuing to rebuild lives.
Today, the hospital’s clinical work extends to treating conditions of the hands, eyes, skin and teeth, offering expert therapies, a sleep disorder centre and a minor injuries unit. With 900 staff and 7,600 members across Sussex, Kent and Surrey, everything QVH does is informed by its passion for providing the highest quality care, the best clinical outcomes and a safe and positive patient experience – confirmed by its ‘outstanding’ rating from the Care Quality Commission for patient care.
The challenge
The QVH website is a shopfront for the hospital and an important way for the hospital to communicate with its external stakeholders and patients. For example, it provides a range of information and resources for clinicians who might want to refer a patient. For patients the site gives details about the hospital, treatment and consultants, as well as a wide range of downloadable information.
Additionally, the website houses news and press releases about the hospital, formal documents such as board papers, and signposts to the QVH Charity for donations and fundraising. Potential employees can learn about research and employment opportunities.
The site is regularly updated with up-to-date information such as the monthly friends and family survey completed by patients giving their view of the hospital. It’s also a place for people to find out about the hospital’s impressive history and heritage.
As such a vital resource, website reliability, availability and security are key factors that have determined QVH’s choice of hosting partner. They also required round-the-clock support.
The solution
Our cloud architects designed a bespoke, high-availability solution for QVH, supported by our rigorous security stack.
As specialists in fully-managed hosting services, we deliver 24/7/365 monitoring and support for QVH, backed up by ongoing performance tuning. We assigned QVH a dedicated account manager, so that if their needs change over time, they can talk to someone familiar with their platform.
Working with Hyve, QVH is able to deliver an informative and valued website, which fulfils the communication requirements the hospital needs, while providing the value for money needed in the public sector.
With a small IT team based at the hospital, QVH relies on external suppliers to offer a high level of expertise in specific areas . “While my team and I are very experienced across a wide range of technologies, we are not hosting experts,” he explained. “Hyve have always delivered a solution based on a strong technology foundation, backed by the capability to guide and advise us as our needs develop.”
During the decade we have worked with QVH, we have formed a true partnership, becoming an extension of their organisation.
Hear from Queen Victoria Hospital
“As a core communication and information service, we made a specific decision to outsource our hosting to an expert third party. We need reliability, performance, value for money and really strong service capabilities. For the last 10 years, that partner has been Hyve Managed Hosting.
I enjoy working with the Hyve team. They are able to deliver the services I need within the budget, while adding a great deal of value to what has become a long-term partnership.
The quality of support provided by Hyve has always been particularly impressive. I have dedicated account managers who I know and can call if I have questions or any problems. Their responsiveness – even outside of normal working hours – is of great benefit.
Hyve’s helpdesk system is very efficient. Front line contacts are technical experts and understand us as a customer and the technology we are using. I deal with lots of technology suppliers from many different businesses and Hyve are consistently strong performers – they have a great ‘can do’ approach.”
Nasir Rafiq, IT Manager at QVH
