Powering the digital engine room of NHS Wales

Curing digital friction for clinicians

Currently, clinicians lose precious time logging into up to 22 different clinical applications per session, but the unified platform will transform how they work. BCUHB is preparing to install and roll out Citrix XenServer to host a resilient new Citrix DaaS environment, layering Imprivata single sign-on to create standardized regional follow-me desktop. 

“We need our new system to be as bulletproof as necessary, because what we can't have is phone calls at 4am on a Saturday or Sunday morning from the Emergency Department telling us something isn't working” says Head of ICT Digital Services, Nick Husbands."That's a non-starter for us. We’re trying to make sure that a member of staff can get to what they want as soon as they can from anywhere without any issues.” 

For a doctor or nurse moving between hospital sites or wards, the digital friction will soon vanish. With Citrix DaaS session persistence keeping workflow active in the data center, subsequent logins will take less than two seconds to access clinical system from where they left off.  

"Follow-me desktop means they can go anywhere they like around the hospital," comments Chief Technology Officer, John Thomas. "The time saving is phenomenal.” In fact, early estimates suggest this reduction in login fatigue could save clinicians up to two hours a day, returning that focus directly to patient care. This borderless experience extends securely outside of Wales. For example, previously, BCUHB had to physically ship dedicated laptops to tertiary partners in England to ensure secure network access. Today, external consultants are granted secure Citrix DaaS web access to clinical applications. Not only does this simplify collaboration, but it massively improves BCUHB's cyber posture. "It prevents any possibility of things leaving the site and it gives everybody that level of confidence that things are being done correctly," notes Husbands. 

Secure endpoint optimization

Facing costly hardware refresh cycles, BCUHB leadership leveraged the full value of the Citrix platform to launch an ambitious infrastructure overhaul. They began repurposing legacy devices into secure, high-performance endpoints using Citrix UniconOS. This releases old devices back into the pool, extending hardware lifespans and supporting sustainability goals.

Currently, just over 100 legacy hardware units have been repurposed, with BCUHB setting a target to reach around 2,500, proving a massive national potential of up to 20,000 units across Wales. These endpoints support the “stream ward boards,” an internal system used by consultants to manage patient flow. “This rollout is a critical piece of technology in terms of managing wards and hospitals," says Chief Technology Officer, John Thomas, and confirms plans to take the project further.

Crucially, shifting to this model enhances security. Applications and patient data remain protected in the data center rather than being stored on the local device, so the attack surface is dramatically reduced, mitigating ransomware risks.

Advanced load balancing and infrastructure

The enterprise license also removes financial barriers for advanced infrastructure capabilities. BCUHB successfully modernized its application delivery by migrating from legacy load balancers to Citrix NetScaler.

This transition is saving the organization around £15,000 per year. However, beyond cost savings, it enables secure web traffic routing, such as providing the medical examiner’s office secure access to vital systems through a DMZ. This simplifies firewall configurations and drastically improves overall infrastructure resilience.

Delivering these infrastructure improvements required more than technology alone. It demanded a carefully managed approach that would minimize risk while ensuring continuity for critical healthcare services. This is why BCUHB selected Computacenter as a trusted delivery partner to modernize the application delivery platform in a controlled and structured way. A proven delivery framework spanning discovery, design, build, migration, testing, and knowledge transfer ensured this complex project was managed with minimal risk.

“There's no way we could have adopted Citrix NetScaler in the way we did without the expertise of Citrix and Computacenter,” says Husbands. “We could never have done it without them.”

A resilient future for NHS Wales

BCUHB is a prime example of taking full advantage of the licensing opportunities available to NHS Wales. Through the unification of licenses under DHCW guidance, NHS Wales can be more resilient than ever and perfectly positioned to integrate future innovations as well as accelerate all cloud-first ambitions, simplifying the transition away from legacy infrastructure. However, the benefits extend even further. With a shared platform and licensing model, NHS Wales is creating a more consistent foundation for modernization across the country.  

"The fact that this exists enables everyone to access the full capability of the Citrix Platform and all its features,” says Lloyd-Jones. “One organization was previously running an effectively unsupported version of Citrix. This contract enabled them to bring that back into a fully supported solution." 

From a taxpayer perspective, the transition has streamlined management and optimized spend. As a result, the organization moves away from the administrative burden of managing separate environments and toward a future of national strategic agility - a blueprint that could be replicated across the rest of the NHS. 

Ultimately, though, this national consolidation is about much more than IT procurement.  It's about creating a digital environment that helps clinicians spend less time managing technology and more time caring for patients. As Thomas summarizes: "This is about reducing the admin overhead. If you shrink that, clinicians can spend more time with a patient, and they can see more patients. Both of those improve patient flow and patient outcomes."