NHS Connectivity Case Study: Managed Cisco Networking & Infrastructure Modernisation
Executive summary Client: NHS Lanarkshire (Scotland) Sector: Healthcare Solution: Cisco Secure Network Infrastructure & Trustmarque Customer Exper...
Executive summary
Client: NHS Lanarkshire (Scotland)
Sector: Healthcare
Solution: Cisco Secure Network Infrastructure & Trustmarque Customer Experience (CX) Managed Services
Key Tech: Cisco Enterprise Agreement (EA 3.0), Catalyst Centre, Data Centre Managed Services
Outcome: 24/7 resilience, proactive network visibility, and a roadmap to HIMSS INFRAM Level 7
NHS Lanarkshire (NHSL) serves a population of over 650,000 across North and South Lanarkshire. Working in partnership with Trustmarque, a leading UK provider of IT solutions and Cisco 360 Preferred Partner, NHS Lanarkshire embarked on a digital transformation journey to overhaul its connectivity estate.
Background: How NHS Lanarkshire Improved Clinical Connectivity
NHS Lanarkshire is one of Scotland’s largest health boards, delivering care across busy hospitals and community sites. Reliable enterprise network connectivity is the backbone of modern healthcare, enabling clinicians to access patient records, collaborate in real time, and support critical services. By 2024, NHSL recognised that its existing network was reaching the limits of resilience and flexibility. The infrastructure had served well for years, but growing digital demands and the need for uninterrupted care highlighted the importance of a refresh.
The Challenge: Enhancing Network Visibility and Resilience
The network underpinning NHSL’s operations faced increasing pressure. While functional, it lacked the diversity and redundancy needed to guarantee seamless connectivity across multiple sites.
Key challenges included:
- Risk Mitigation: Single points of failure meant any outage could disrupt clinical workflows.
- Scalability: Bandwidth constraints were a concern as more services moved online and data volumes surged.
- Proactive Operations: Network visibility and observability were limited; without real-time monitoring and telemetry, diagnosing issues was reactive.
- Governance: The board needed to strengthen security controls and ensure compliance with NHS standards within tight timelines.
The Solution: Cisco Secure Network infrastructure with Trustmarque CX Services
Trustmarque helped NHSL align Cisco investments with Healthcare IT services strategy, including:
- A five-year Cisco Enterprise Agreement (EA 3.0)
- A three-year UK-based co-managed service for Networking and Switching
- A five-year managed service for Data Centre network infrastructure
These commitments underpin NHSL’s broader transformation, supporting initiatives like the Electronic Health & Care Record (EHCR) program to support the present needs and enabling progress toward HIMSS INFRAM Level 7—a key milestone for the new hospital scheduled to open in 2031. Partnering with Trustmarque, NHSL adopted a lifecycle-led approach that emphasised transformation, strategic planning, and performance-driven adoption.
Collaboration between customer success, engineering and service teams produced a structured roadmap aligning IT use cases with business and clinical goals, leading to measurable improvements in infrastructure, team capability, and demonstrating alignment with NHSL’s Digital Plan (2023–2028).
Trustmarque is delivering a structured lifecycle management service for its new Enterprise Agreement software, focusing on consumption and optimising adoption across all network solutions. Technical Success Engineers (TSEs) provide dedicated support, enabling NHSL teams through targeted enablement, knowledge transfer, and data-driven success planning. This collaboration is prioritising enhanced network visibility, strengthened security, and ensuring continued compliance with NHS governance. Regular success reviews and KPI tracking are supporting measurable progress, including against the strategic objectives of the Digital Connectivity Service team.
Impact
Trustmarque now co-manages over two-thirds of Lanarkshire’s ICT Infrastructure which includes the full network estate, and since embarking on the network refresh program, NHS Lanarkshire have transformed connectivity across the health board. The new architecture delivers resilience and diversity, ensuring critical services remain available even during major incidents. New governance around documentation established a repeatable onboarding/remediation process to keep endpoints compliant with network access and monitoring, aligned inventories across tools, and is now enhancing capabilities with a focus on compliance and security.
"We have transitioned from a standard vendor arrangement to a genuine strategic alliance, enabling enhanced lifecycle management, value realisation and more. Trustmarque now operates as an extension of our own team, seamlessly collaborating with us on a day-to-day basis. The services and solutions provided by Trustmarque, along with their in-house expertise and Customer success manager, have been crucial in driving our performance and supporting our plans for future growth.”
Shane Carrier, Digital Services Manager, NHS Lanarkshire
Real-time monitoring and telemetry now provide proactive visibility, reducing troubleshooting time and allowing capacity planning based on live data. Security has been strengthened with robust access controls and compliance measures, giving NHSL confidence in safeguarding sensitive information. Importantly, these improvements were achieved within the agreed timelines and without disruption to frontline care.
Outcomes: Turning Insight into Action
Through discovery workshops, our Customer Success Manage run covered barriers that were limiting NHS Lanarkshire’s ability to fully leverage its technology investments. These insights shaped targeted enablement sessions on Cisco Catalyst Centre—bringing best practices and hands-onknowledge transfer directly to the team and aligning every step with NHSL’s strategic network goals.
Data-Driven Success
A lifecycle-led success plan sets clear, measurable objectives and links them to tangible outcomes. Quarterly Success Reviews kept momentum high, tracking KPIs and ensuring solutions evolved with NHSL’schanging needs—turning strategy into sustained progress.
Visibility That Drives Confidence
Reviewed and corrected device inventories across the network management platforms, and established a repeatable process to keep them accurate. Next steps agreed, including adoption of software image management and compliance baselines/reporting, strengthening governance, improving operational visibility, and reducing risk across the estate.
Accelerated Adoption
Multiple available IT use cases have advanced to the Adopt and Optimise stages of Cisco’s lifecycle model, particularly around campus network visibility and observability—delivering faster time-to-value and stronger operational maturity.
Empowered Stakeholders
Tailored enablement sessions and direct access to Cisco resources have equipped NHSL’s IT leaders with the skills and confidence to own their technology roadmap and maximise toolset adoption.
Enabling Digital Transformation
The refreshed infrastructure now underpins NHSL’s flagship initiatives, including the Electronic Health & Care Record (EHCR) programme, by delivering reliability and scalability.
Driving Digital Maturity
NHS Lanarkshire is on track toward HIMSS INFRAM Level 7, embracing digitisation and data-driven healthcare. This progress lays the foundation for the new University Hospital Monklands, targeted for opening in 2031, where cutting-edge network technology and governance will be essential.
“We now receive continuous alert reporting onthe estate under management and collaborate via live chat with the Digital Connectivity Services Team. That real‑time visibility helps us address issues more quickly and confidently.”
Shane Carrier, Digital Services Manager, NHS Lanarkshire
About Trustmarque Customer Success
At Trustmarque, Customer Success is not an add-on; it is a core discipline within the Enterprise Connectivity Practice and a key differentiator. Our Customer Success Managers (CSMs) are Cisco-certified specialists in adoption and lifecycle management, ensuring customers realise tangible value from their technology investments. Equally integral to our success are our outstanding Technical Success Engineers (TSEs) and Network Operations Centre (NOC) engineers, who form the backbone ofour technical expertise. With hands-on experience across both field and NOC settings, their deep technical knowledge underpins our next-generation consultative support services, enabling us to deliver measurable business outcomes for our customers.
Every engagement begins with a bespoke Customer Success Plan, built around the customer’s strategic objectives and underpinned by data-driven insights. This plan sets clear success metrics, aligns technology investments with organisational goals, and ensures continuous value realisation throughout the lifecycle.
“As a Customer Success Manager, my mission is to help NHS Boards unlock the full value of their technology investments. By applying lifecycle best practices and working in close partnership with IT stakeholders, I support customers such as NHS Lanarkshire in adopting the capability within their modernised infrastructure, driving operational change, and accelerating time-to-value in line with their strategic priorities. Success is measured not only by technical deployment milestones, but by the lasting improvements and optimisation that positively impacts frontline teams and the patients they serve throughout the healthcare journey.”
Dee Naisbitt, EC Customer Success Manager
What makes our Enterprise Connectivity Practice exceptional:
Enterprise Connectivity Expertise: Our CSMs and TSEs specialise in complex networking environments, leveraging Cisco Catalyst Centre and advanced telemetry to drive visibility, automation, and operational excellence.
Proactive, Outcome-Focused Engagement: We don’t wait for issues—we anticipate them. Through Quarterly Success Reviews (QSRs), regular health checks, and adoption workshops, we keep customers ahead of change and aligned with evolving priorities.
Enablement That Empowers: Beyond technical guidance, we deliver tailored enablement sessions for IT leaders and stakeholders, ensuring confidence in toolsets and accelerating adoption. In addition, our Network Operations Centre (NOC) team provides dedicated support services, offering hands-on expertise and rapid incident resolution. This ensures that critical infrastructure remains robust and operational, empowering IT teams to focus on strategic priorities while benefitting from proactive monitoring and responsive escalation for more complex issues.
Lifecycle-Led Methodology: From Onboard to Renew, our approach follows Cisco’s industry-leading CX framework, ensuring customers extract maximum value from every investment.
Strategic Partnership: We act as trusted advisors, bridging technology and business strategy to support transformation initiatives such as digital health programmes, HIMSS maturity, and cloud readiness.
The result? Customers like NHS Lanarkshire achieve greater resilience, improved visibility, and accelerated digital maturity, all while reducing operational risk and maximising ROI.