Smart Network Management report

The Future Connectivity Programme’s Connectivity Hub produces, sources and shares expert technical knowledge to support the NHS to plan and implement the right connectivity for local needs.

To target and prioritise the right blend of system knowledge and expert independent advice, we engage with health and care organisations, directly and through surveys, to understand their connectivity challenges and procure and publish externally independent commissioned reports into priority topics.

This report was produced following the selection of a supplier via an open tender procurement process run according to PCR2015 during 2024. Under the terms of the contract between NHS England and the supplier in question, the intellectual property rights (IPR) of the report and any associated material sits solely with NHS England who reserve the right to adapt and amend the published version of the report.

Any enquiries on the content of the report should be directed to the NHS England Future Connectivity Programme: [email protected].

This content is taken from an independent report into Smart Network Management in the NHS, commissioned by the Future Connectivity programme and produced by Farrpoint Ltd.

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 does not constitute an endorsement from NHS England.

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

The purpose of the report is to build understanding of the potential benefits of Smart Network management technologies and approaches to support NHS and Integrated Care Board (ICB) partner organisations in understanding if these solutions would be beneficial in their care settings.

Health organisations are increasingly reliant on digital services and data to support healthcare delivery, building and facilities management, administration, patient services, research, and a range of other applications. These services are delivered to a wide range of users on a variety of client devices. 

Wired and wireless networks are used to deliver all these digital services and are seeing increasing levels of demand and need to be reliable and secure. Historically, the response to increased demand on a network was to provide more speed and capacity; however, increasingly, there is a need for networks to differentiate between applications, client devices, users and locations and to use this information to offer an appropriate level of service and access. 

The increased complexity of networks, the applications and devices that rely on them, and cyber security threats mean that traditional manual network and device provisioning and management are likely to become unsustainable. Resource is not available to manage and monitor the associated range of configurations, service levels, and security risks. Smart Network Management offers a range of functionality that helps address these issues, using management and visualisation tools, automation and, increasingly, artificial intelligence, to deliver, monitor and manage network services in an increasingly complex and demanding environment. 

This report has been commissioned by NHS England Future Connectivity programme. It is aimed at integrated care system (ICS) and NHS trust chief information officers and their network managers and service managers. 

The report defines Smart Network Management and describes how it can help health organisations ensure their networks continue to offer high levels of service and availability despite increasing demand and complexity. It also demonstrates the operational and cost efficiencies Smart Network Management can deliver, with suppliers quoting operational savings of 20 – 50% by using network infrastructure and support resource more effectively.

This report is intended to provide an initial introduction to Smart Network Management and an overview of its application and benefits in a health environment. 

The detail in this report has been obtained using a review of documentation and interviews with equipment manufacturers and health organisations. We are grateful for the support these manufacturers and organisations provided.

Where this report references a specific manufacturer’s product or service, this should not be interpreted as a recommendation. All such references are for indicative purposes only.