Students use IT skills to help the NHS during pandemic

University students have been drafted in to help the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Birmingham Women and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust has taken on student volunteers from Birmingham City University to provide computing and infrastructure support.

NHS Trusts rely heavily on technology to deliver essential care, from accessing patient records and test results to the procurement and of ordering supplies, as well as other business functions such as payroll.

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A group of four students were recruited by the University’s Careers+ team to work in the trust’s service desk team, answering telephone calls and fulfilling online requests from members of the public.

John Borland, ICT operations manager who is overseeing the programme, said: "The ICT team at the trust are focussed on ensuring that all our essential services are maintained and that we can enable staff to work from home where possible; this means some of our development projects and innovations have had to be put on hold while we do this.

"Having additional support from Birmingham City University is helping our team by spreading the load a little wider enabling some of the ‘nice to have’ requests to be fulfilled rather than just high priority requests.

"We hope that working together will expose some of our existing ICT staff to news ideas and technologies the students have pursued at university."

During the Covid-19 pandemic, technology has played an increasingly vital role in ensuring patients can be seen by their clinical teams, as increasing numbers of clinics, consultations, training and staff briefings are being conducted virtually through online video tools.

The students work two or three days a week, observing social distancing in offices away from the main building.

The university aims to have 12 volunteers in place by next month.