Mission Critical: Where expertise is paramount

NHS Blood & Transplant (NHSBT), the authority responsible for tracking, testing and supplying blood to hospitals throughout England and North Wales, recently embarked on a major infrastructure upgrade to create a centralised national blood supply system.

Blood products must be immediately available and moved quickly to where they are needed. The new platform therefore had to be designed to survive multiple system failures in case of natural or man-made disasters.

“We can handle a period of downtime of a few minutes or even hours, but beyond that, we could be putting lives at risk,” says Neil Hogg, General Manager of IT for NHSBT. “Bringing in the right level of expertise was therefore both safety-critical and mission-critical. Our system vendor put forward an independent sub-contractor, Colin Butcher (XDelta Limited) to design and lead the implementation of a new disaster tolerant platform.

“On a project where expertise is critical the size of the company delivering the expertise is irrelevant, neither positive nor negative. What matters is the individual you will be working with. When vendors tender for projects they often highlight their collective credentials, which don’t necessarily reflect the individual expertise of the person handling your project. Because our vendor transparently recommended an independent consultant, we were able to assess his personal track record. We could see that Colin had a background in mission critical systems such as air traffic control which reassured us that he had the right skills for the project.

“Not only does Colin have the deep technical understanding we needed, he also has the ability to articulate it and to provide options. As a knowledgeable client we want the pros and cons clearly explained so that we can make choices. The great thing about a true subject matter expert is they won’t lie to you – they’ll tell you what could go wrong rather than being wise after the event.

“You also benefit from their personal network, letting you get straight to the heart of issues.  When working with particular software, for example, we could bypass the support desk because Colin knew the person who wrote the code.

“The impartial opinion of an independent third party is very valuable. Colin would make recommendations for the good of the project, irrespective of whether these were in the commercial interests of the vendor sub-contracting him.”

Colin Butcher says this is possible thanks to a close working relationship with both the vendor and the application provider (Savant): “The vendor sub-contracted me transparently because they understand the value of an objective view in this kind of project and trust me to do the right thing. Equally, I trust them to provide the support and advice we need to deliver.  It’s very collaborative.”

“Collaboration and trust between all parties is so important”, underlines Neil Hogg. “Working together we have succeeded in building the largest centralised blood management system in the world .”