Case Study: Bedford Hospital NHS Trust achieves hospital-wide mobile BYOD access and improved clinical care with Riverbed

Bedford NHS Ushers in the Hospital of the Future with Xirrus Wireless

Bedford Hospital NHS Trust, a 400‑bed acute hospital serving roughly 270,000 people with over 2,000 staff, needed its first pervasive wireless network to enable a BYOD strategy that would improve patient care and resource efficiency. The challenge was to deliver secure, high‑capacity coverage across a Victorian, partly listed building while minimizing cabling, avoiding interference with critical medical equipment, and providing separate access for staff, third parties and patients.

The trust deployed Xirrus high‑capacity arrays and access points with application‑level control, a dual‑VLAN design (private network for clinicians/visitors and a public SSID for patients), and 5 GHz optimization to limit interference—requiring fewer APs and less cabling. The two‑month rollout delivered ward‑round access to ePMA, pathology results and x‑rays, wireless stock checks for pharmacists, paperless meetings, third‑party internet access and Wi‑Fi voice, boosting productivity, speeding clinical decisions and enabling scalable expansion toward a paperless future.

Bedford Hospital NHS Trust

Mark Austin

Assistant Director of Clinical Information and Business Intelligence