The Government and leading telecoms companies have announced new initiatives to support healthcare professionals have priority broadband and free data.
Frontline NHS workers dealing with COVID-19 will be able to access free data and calls for NHS staff using their own phone for work purposes.
For clinicians working from home, they will benefit from priority broadband to ensure they are using the fastest possible solution.
Care homes will also be supported with improved connectivity where possible to improve areas where broadband may be slow.
The initiative comes in response to many healthcare services, such as outpatient appointments, are now being provided remotely.
The companies include: BT/EE, Openreach, Sky, talktalk, Virgin Media, O2, Three, Vodafone, Cityfibre, Gigaclear, Tesco Mobile, giffgaff, Hyperoptic and KCOM.
NHS staff will be identified, and do not need to call their communications provider.
Oliver Dowden Digital Secretary said “Our NHS heroes need to be able to carry out their vital work without worrying about technology failing them – and people using NHS services online need to be able to rely on their connections.”
“These welcome commitments will mean frontline NHS staff can use personal phones for work purposes without limits or extra charges, allow GPs to carry out consultations and transfer large files from home, and help vulnerable people who depend most on the NHS for care.”
“I applaud the NHS for its continued fight to save lives, and mobile and broadband companies who have stepped up yet again to help in the national effort.”
NHSX chief executive Matthew Gould said “Covid-19 has made stark the importance of technology in helping people and those who care for them stay connected.”
“Technology has the potential to be a tremendous force for good in helping the country and its citizens through the crisis, and we are grateful to industry colleagues for offering their support to the NHS.”
The detail of the what is included in the initiative:
- Offer identified NHS frontline staff, who are existing customers, the mobile data access, voice calls and text they need, at no extra cost, on their personal mobiles used for work purposes, to enable the staff to work remotely without fear of extra charges and limitations;
- Ensure NHS clinicians working from home have, wherever possible, prioritised broadband upgrades to superfast or other improvements they might need, in order to perform tasks, such as consultations carried out via video conferencing and to download/upload large medical files. Clinicians with slow or standard broadband speeds, for example, would be eligible to be upgraded to superfast speeds where their current connections are insufficient. Some providers will upgrade customers who are NHS workers on to faster speeds without any extra charge;
- Improve connectivity in care homes that have slow, or no, broadband connections, wherever possible; and
- While patients having remote consultations will get the best experience on a fixed broadband connection, there are a small proportion of mobile-only households. Operators have already agreed generous data allowances for their vulnerable mobile customers, so that patients that can only use a mobile connection for their video consultations will have sufficient data available.
