Serco Asia Pacific, a government service contractor, has begun running several specialised services at Fiona Stanley Hospital, a digital public hospital in Perth, Western Australia.
The ICT services, which cover the hospital's service desk, network infrastructure, Enterprise Compute and application teams, have been previously supported by global IT provider BT since the FSH commissioning a decade back.
On 19 August, Serco started overseeing the services and the remaining workforce from BT, which are now operating under its ICT and Digital portfolio.
WHY IT MATTERS
According to a media release, the inclusion of the hospital's ICT services in Serco's end-to-end facility management has enabled "smooth" delivery of services. It has also backed some major projects, such as a network infrastructure upgrade.
THE LARGER CONTEXT
This month marks the start of the extended six-year term contract of Serco with the WA government. The AU$730-million contract (around $525 million) is for delivering support services at FSH, covering reception, external patient transport, HR, recruitment and training, among others. The parties had a 10-year long contract which started with the commissioning of the 783-bed public hospital in 2011.
From 24, Serco is now providing 21 non-clinical and support services to the hospital after agreeing that the cleaning, catering or internal logistics services will be delivered by the WA government.
This means that up to 650 staff will be offered public sector jobs by the South Metropolitan Health Service. According to the government's statement last year in March, this move will cost an estimated AU$8 million ($5.7 million) each year and a one-off transition cost of A$12.9 million ($9 million).
ON THE RECORD
"Fiona Stanley Hospital is a digital flagship public hospital and the infrastructure and support services that enable this are managed by our Serco contract team who are based on-site. Our focus has always been on supporting the overall services to the hospital staff and patients and this transition further enhances that service," said Serco Managing Director Ben Bayot.
"Our ICT and Digital team are highly specialised in understanding the complexities of a busy, operational hospital and provide excellent support to clinicians to deliver positive patient outcomes," Sheela Maji, chief digital officer at Serco Asia Pacific, also commented.
