The solution needed to process over one million items of sensitive mail each year and eliminate the manual and costly processes currently in place.

Despite having its own in-house hybrid mail solution at its disposal, Funasset chose to recommend a hybrid mail system it developed for a leading parcel and mail logistics company in the UK.

Following many months of talks between Funasset, the UK mail delivery company and the Trust, testing was successfully completed at the end of September 2012 in preparation for an October go-live date.

The sensitive nature of the mail items meant Funasset needed to adhere to the Connecting For Health’s (CFH) Information Governance Toolkit. A self assessment was performed and completed satisfactorily reflecting Funasset's dedication towards handling private and confidential data securely.

“We knew that conforming to the NHS assessment wouldn’t be a problem because we had recently attained ISO 27001 Information Security Management certification,” states Mark Dowson, Managing Director of Funasset. “We take the security of our own data and third-party data seriously and both these assessment processes demonstrate this.”

It is hoped that the use of the hybrid mail system by Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells will be a catalyst for other NHS Trusts to take advantage of the considerable savings the service can help them achieve each year. Mark comments: “By reducing the hours spent manually processing NHS mail the associated savings can hopefully be channelled into other areas that have a direct affect on patients.”

NHS Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Head of Procurement, Ian Ollerenshaw said: “We conducted a very competitive bidding process and are delighted to have selected the UK mail delivery company as our print and mail partner. As with all Trusts we face significant pressure to achieve cashable savings in the short term, and the hybrid mail system will provide us with savings from the first letter they securely print and mail for us."