virtual private networks
“Converting from a fixed network to the IP-based N3 offered
the potential for major financial savings. The benefits of this
highly flexible networking arrangement could not be
achieved, however, if it meant that personal data would be
placed at risk in any way.”
Implementing secure environment
The operators of one COIN in the North of Eng-
land overcame the potential security risk in a
way that has allowed them to create a net-
work which integrated fixed and mobile com-
munications seamlessly while guaranteeing
the security of all its traffic.
NHS North Lincolnshire and North East Lin-
colnshire Care Trust Plus - described here sim-
ply as ‘Northern Lincolnshire’ – had estab-
lished a COIN and are therefore typical users
of the N3 network.
The group’s experience in accommodating
the security considerations has direct rel-
evance and obvious application to other com-
munity-based organisations across the NHS
footprint.
Northern Lincolnshire serves a population
of around 330,000. Its network encompasses
network running under the Internet Protocol two major NHS hospitals and 58 GP practices.
(IP). With around 18,000 NHS sites currently Its private leased circuit network had been
linked to N3 (each through two diversely routed used to link more than 120 individual sites
connections for resilience), the network is one (points of access) in the COIN which spans
of the largest of its kind in the world. the two PCTs.
Within the environment of N3, NHS ‘custom- The physical integrity of the leased line
ers’ – COINs, and any other groups of NHS in- network which supported Northern Lincoln-
stitutions needing to be networked - carve out shire meant that the security of personal in-
their own virtual private networks (VPNs). formation was not a major issue. Converting
This strategy is highly flexible and cost-ef- to the N3 network and its overlays of VPNs
fective: new virtual networks can be created therefore added a new security dimension to
and others reconfigured rapidly, while re- the design and implementation of network
sources are only committed at the instant a services.
VPN is established. Costs are reduced dramati-
cally as a result.
There is an important trade-off, however, and
Security requirements
it is that person-identifiable data (usually re- As the Network Manager for Northern Lincoln-
lating to patients) is moving between two shire, Darren McKay was well placed to out-
points in a COIN’s Virtual Private Network but line the requirements that the new network
over the same physical network infrastructure arrangements had to fulfill. “Converting from
as other information. a fixed network to the IP-based N3 offered the
In theory at least, that data could be com- potential for major financial savings. No less
promised in the interests of network cost important, it would allow us to draw together
reduction. both fixed and mobile devices into a single
The nationwide IP-based network, N3, enables NHS ‘customers’ to carve out their own VPNs. This is
highly flexible and cost-effective: new virtual networks can be created and others reconfigured rapidly.
62
The Informed Executive
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