Case Study: NHS Dumfries and Galloway achieves proactive protection of patient data with Qualys Cloud Platform

NHS Dumfries and Galloway Adopts a Proactive Approach to Safeguarding Patient Data

NHS Dumfries and Galloway is the regional health board providing care to over 148,000 people across South West Scotland, supporting about 5,500 staff and roughly 1,000 GP practices. Faced with a rapid rise in fixed and mobile devices, growing digital patient records and strict regulatory requirements, the IT team needed to move from a reactive to a proactive approach to protect patient data and ensure always-on availability for critical systems.

They implemented the Qualys Cloud Platform (Vulnerability Management) to continuously scan ~1,000 endpoints, giving broad, integrated visibility across servers, medical devices and user machines. Automated reporting, regular scans and system integrations reduced reliance on external consultants, sped up incident response (e.g., Heartbleed), improved vulnerability remediation and compliance, and delivered cost and efficiency gains as they roll out patch automation and standardized server images.

NHS Dumfries and Galloway

Andrew Turner

Head of Information Assurance and Security