Making the business case for Wi-Fi infrastructure investment - guidance

This guidance document has been produced by the NHS England Future Connectivity Programme to support NHS staff and organisations make the case for Wi-Fi infrastructure investment by producing robust and well evidenced business cases.

The target audience for the guidance is NHS staff, including chief information officers, IT and network managers, operational and estate managers, and all other roles responsible for IT and network management decisions and business case production within their organisation.

This guidance focusses solely on making the case for Wi-Fi infrastructure investment. We recognise that some Wi-Fi network improvements will be delivered as part of a wider business change and business case, such as deployment of a new site or a new capability, and as such not all of this guidance will be applicable. In these instances, some of the guidance and examples may be useful in forming the Wi-Fi specific content of the wider business case.

We also recognise that not all investment in Wi-Fi infrastructure will require such an in-depth case as detailed in this guidance document, although we believe that all of the sections will be relevant and should be useful as a checklist or guide to ensure all relevant elements have been considered, even if full documentation is not required at this level of detail.

Where local business case templates and processes are already in place those should be adhered to, and this guidance can be used to inform the content of the business cases even if the sections and specific content differ.

The content is 'supplier agnostic' which means we do not endorse any specific companies, innovations, or approaches. Any mention of, or link to, a specific supplier or product is not an endorsement from the Connectivity Hub or NHS England and is for illustrative purposes only.

For clarity, any recommendations made in this report are those of the report author and do not necessarily represent an endorsement, policy, or requirement from NHS England.