Dell breathes new life into Combat Stress’ IT operations

Combat Stress, the leading UK charity for veterans’ mental health, has chosen Dell as its technology partner. Through the partnership, Combat Stress has developed a comprehensive IT roadmap to transform its information systems and support therapists in their care for veterans.

Combat Stress offers specialist clinical treatment and welfare support to more than 5,400 UK veterans suffering from psychological injuries. Functioning as both a healthcare provider for service personnel and a charity, the organisation faces unique IT challenges. When making any IT changes, Combat Stress must comply with charity and patient administration system regulations in addition to meeting the terms of the government’s Official Secrets Act due to the handling of sensitive military information. To choose the right partner to meet all its security, information governance and healthcare needs, Combat Stress selected Dell to support its development of a comprehensive IT roadmap.

Richard Burley, CIO, Combat Stress, explained the need for Dell’s expertise: “My goal is to plot a course towards a better information strategy. To achieve this, we need a technology partner with the experience and the vision to support us in overcoming our security and governance challenges. Dell can supply all the hardware we need – from storage to laptops – and has helped us develop a comprehensive five year Best Practice plan to show the board of trustees and directors how the technical side of our organisation could function. This roadmap has been vital to helping people understand why certain IT projects will be critical to achieving the charity’s strategic goals.”

With the plan in place, Combat Stress is now looking to implement a series of technology deployments to fulfill its vision. The first deployment, scheduled to start in November 2014, will completely revamp the charity’s networking infrastructure. Combat Stress will replace all networking equipment across three sites in the UK to allow it to roll out new veteran services. The savings gained by this project will amount to approximately £60,000 – the equivalent cost of a senior psychologist’s annual salary.

“As technology changes, organisations focused on helping our veterans need to adapt to offer optimum levels of care. We plan to combine our vertical expertise in government and healthcare with our technology proficiency to offer charities, such as Combat Stress, all that they need to operate effectively while keeping IT costs to a minimum,” said Tim Loake, director, services, Dell UK.