Better broadband for Welsh GPs

GP surgeries in Wales are set to get faster and more resilient broadband, following an improvement to the country’s public service network.

The Public Sector Broadband Aggregation network provides a single communications network for the key ICT networks in Wales, including health, education, government and other local services.

The latest improvements will give GP surgeries greater bandwidth, which will increase upload and download speeds and boost system performance.

Upgrades will be rolled out to 472 of the 484 GP practices by summer next year, providing 10 megabits bandwidth, an improvement on the 1Mbps or 2Mbps connections currently in place.

As well as faster connections, GP surgeries will have additional data lines installed, ensuring robust connectivity.

The health sector involvement in the network has been led by NHS Wales Informatics Service, alongside the other founding sectors of local government, higher and further education and the Welsh Assembly itself.

PSBA replaced the Digital All-Wales Network, ‘dawn2’, which supported health organisations until 2009.

Services currently available on the network include the use of shared services, video conferencing capability and a common approach to email and telephone services.