Case Study: UK Health Security Agency achieves faster COVID-19 response with IBM

The UK Health Security Agency drives fast-track response to pandemic

The UK Health Security Agency needed to rapidly expand COVID-19 testing, contact tracing, and border quarantine operations as the pandemic evolved and new policy changes emerged. Working with IBM, it had to build secure, scalable digital services fast enough to process huge volumes of test results and manage complex traveler workflows across the UK.

IBM delivered a Salesforce-based platform with IBM Consulting, Hybrid Cloud Services, and MuleSoft Anypoint Platform to create the Real-Time Testing Service and support services like the International Arrivals Service and Managed Quarantine Service. The results were dramatic: test result processing time fell from 8 hours to 16 minutes, throughput rose to more than 1 million tests per day, and the system helped quarantine about 100,000 arrivals, more than 2% of whom tested positive.

UK Health Security Agency

Simon Bolton

Chief Executive of NHS Digital—and former Chief Information Officer