How We Became the IT Department for a Fast-Growing Healthcare Consultancy

About the Business

Our client is a specialist healthcare consultancy working with NHS trusts, private hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies across the UK. With a team that had grown from 12 to 40 people in just two years, the business was scaling fast. Their work involves handling patient data, clinical research files, and confidential strategic documents, all of which fall under strict GDPR and NHS data handling requirements. The consultancy operates from a London headquarters with staff regularly working remotely from client sites, home offices, and hospitals.

The Challenge

The firm had one internal IT person who had been with the business since it was a 12-person startup. At that size, they coped well. But as headcount tripled and the complexity of the IT environment grew, they became completely overwhelmed. Days were spent resetting passwords, troubleshooting VPN issues, and dealing with laptop problems. There was no time for proactive work, no monitoring in place, and no formal security or backup processes. The board was increasingly concerned. They were handling sensitive patient data without a documented data protection framework. Staff were using personal cloud storage for work files because the official systems were unreliable. The internal IT person had no backup themselves, so when they were on leave, issues simply piled up until they returned. Several NHS contracts required the consultancy to demonstrate robust IT governance, including access controls, encryption, audit trails, and incident response plans. The firm could not provide any of this. They knew they needed professional IT management, but they wanted a partner who understood the healthcare sector and the regulatory environment they operated in.

Our Solution

The Outcome

The transition from internal IT to our managed service was completed in three weeks, with a structured handover that ensured no knowledge was lost. The internal IT person was redeployed into a project management role where their institutional knowledge of the business proved far more valuable. The impact was immediate and measurable. Ticket response times dropped from an average of several hours to under 15 minutes. The first-contact resolution rate hit 98%, meaning the vast majority of issues are solved on the first call without escalation. Staff stopped using personal cloud storage because the official systems now work reliably and are easier to access. In the 12 months since we took over, the consultancy has had zero data breaches, zero unplanned outages, and has passed every NHS data handling audit without issue. Their IT satisfaction score, measured through quarterly staff surveys, climbed from 3.2 out of 5 to 4.8. The board now has full visibility into their IT environment through monthly reports covering uptime, security posture, backup status, and support performance. When they tender for NHS contracts, they can provide comprehensive evidence of their IT governance, something that was previously impossible. The firm's operations director summed it up simply: they no longer worry about IT. It just works, and when it does not, someone competent is already on it.

Services Provided