Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Overview

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation (WWL) is a medium-sized Trust with 7,000 active IT users across the Wigan borough and Greater Manchester area, providing secondary care and Community Health service support. Working with children and adults with complex health needs requires WWL to provide the best possible healthcare.

Cyber security is an ever-evolving challenge and partnering with Wavenet put us in the best position to protect ourselves. The relationship between my team and the Wavenet CyberGuard team has been incredibly beneficial. It’s a relationship that continues to flourish through regular updates, communication, and support.

Malcolm Gandy

Chief Information Officer at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Situation

The WWL had a firm understanding of the increased threat on NHS Trusts being targeted by cyber-attacks. Due to this increased threat, coupled with the national skills shortage, a robust cyber strategy was required, alongside appropriate cyber security training and education to protect WWL’s staff and patients from potential malicious cyber-attacks.

Alan Moss, IT Programme Manager at WWL, said: “Finding a way for cyber security to be managed correctly and efficiently is paramount… Cyber-attacks are increasing yearly, and because of that, so is the demand for security coverage.”

As part of its 10-year strategy, WWL aimed to advance its cyber security and digital infrastructure to improve patient care. CIO for WWL, Malcolm Gandy, said: “We needed a cyber security partner who had an expert level of knowledge, someone we knew could deliver and had a solid footprint within the NHS.”

With Wavenet recently providing Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BCHC) with CyberGuard, WWL could see parallels between the challenges the BCHC faced, and the benefits the solution provided. This gave the WWL proof that Wavenet CyberGuard could give them a robust cyber security service and the proven knowledge and experience within the NHS sector that they desired.

Solution

During the procurement process, Wavenet offered WWL a Managed Detect and Respond (MDR) solution alongside Microsoft’s Azure Sentinel as the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system. By combining an MDR and SIEM solution, WWL were provided with complete visibility and enhanced threat detection for their Trust, all while being monitored 24/7/365 from Wavenet CyberGuard’s UK SOC.

These solutions also needed to encompass certain NHS-based compliance. NHS Digital requires at least six months of retained log files. With Wavenet CyberGuard’s SIEM solution, log files are stored in the cloud and can be accessed effortlessly. The DSP Toolkit compliance required the WWL to acquire guidance and advisory from other parties, which the Trust now receives daily from Wavenet CyberGuard.

Alongside the MDR and SIEM solutions, WWL needed to streamline their processes and enable staff members the ability to contact Wavenet CyberGuard directly in the event of an emergency, or if a suspected phishing email was found. This requirement reflected the 5-year digital strategy put in place by the CIO to ensure that staff are cyber security aware.

To ensure that Wavenet’s services and solutions were suitable for the WWL, a three-month trial period was implemented as a proof of concept, allowing the Trust to build confidence in the protection. During this period, Wavenet would host weekly meetings to discuss the current solution and provide feedback on the current threat landscape of the industry. Once the trial period had concluded, WWL happily signed with Wavenet as their cyber security partner.

Working with a prestigious NHS Trust has been incredibly insightful and rewarding for everyone within the Wavenet CyberGuard team, both personally and professionally. The NHS is a valuable public sector, Wavenet is proud to call WWL a partner and help keep their staff, patients, and data safe.

You can find out more about the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust here.

www.wwl.nhs.uk