Accenture has won a contract to implement an updated version of the NHSmail service for the NHS in England and Scotland.
The five-year contract from the Department of Health in England and NHS National Services Scotland will see an improved cloud-based secure email being deployed with new add-ons to the core service.
These include an enterprise-wide directory and Lync collaboration technology for enabling instant messaging, VOIP and audio and visual communication.
Accenture and partner Avanade will also deploy a secure and multi-tenanted email service based on Microsoft Exchange 2013 to replace the NHS’s existing platform
The service, which will be available to all NHS and social care organisations, will be supported by Avanade’s unified communications and collaboration managed service.
"Almost 700,000 doctors, clinicians and other health and care employees already use NHSmail to communicate securely," said Aimie Chapple, managing director for Accenture‘s UK health business.
Chapple added: "The new improved NHSmail service will provide significant digital technology improvements to help NHS staff drive even more effective collaboration at all points of patient care.
"This will be one of the largest mailbox migrations ever delivered and will bring significant benefits to the way NHS employees exchange information, communicate and interact across healthcare."
