Virgin Media delivers fibre broadband to NHS trust

East London NHS Foundation Trust has invested in a new fibre optic broadband network courtesy of a deal with Virgin Media Business.

Under the agreement, the cable company will connect 50 of the healthcare organisation's sites, increasing the average speed available to desktop users to 10Mbps.

The foundation trust is looking to boost its broadband capabilities so that its 3,700 employees can access online applications such as patient records and booking systems more effectively.

Virgin's virtual private network will replace ageing BT infrastructure that proved expensive to run and was often afflicted by outages that could last for days on end.

David Astley, head of public sector, health and emergency services at Virgin Media Business, said: "Hosted applications, whether they be in a private or public cloud, all depend on one thing to work properly - connectivity."

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust signed a similar deal with the internet service provider in April.