Case Study: Health & Social Care in Northern Ireland achieves reduced TCO and stronger two‑factor authentication with Thales OneWelcome

Health and Social Care - Customer Case Study

Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland (HSC) — comprising the five HSC Trusts and supporting agencies — needed to tighten remote and web‑based access to large volumes of sensitive patient data, meet ISO27001 and Connecting for Health guidance, and reduce the total cost of ownership of their aging hardware‑token two‑factor authentication (2FA) system that served up to 700 users. Health and Social Care selected SafeNet Authentication Service PCE (SAS PCE) supplied by Thales OneWelcome to replace the legacy solution.

Thales OneWelcome deployed SAS PCE across HSCNI, initially supplying 1,000 tokens and expanding to 2,000 by July 2009, delegated administration to individual organizations, and integrated 2FA for remote, contractor and web applications. The solution delivered measurable benefits: projected substantial three‑year cost savings from lower hardware and admin costs, longer‑life tokens with no expiry, economies of scale from a framework contract, and flexible token options (soft, USB, SMS) — results Thales OneWelcome reports are on track to meet the forecast savings.

Health and Social Care

Michael Harnett

ICT Security Manager