Establishing a world-class digital foundation for emergency services across the UK
About the ARP
The Ambulance Radio Programme (ARP) delivers mission-critical communication and mobilisation technologies to ensure effective communication between Ambulance Service Trusts, the NHS, and other emergency responders across the UK.
The Challenge
The successful delivery of emergency services depends on critical platforms being always on and always available, ensuring citizens in the most remote areas can always make contact and receive aid as quickly as possible. With even the smallest periods of downtime potentially costing lives, ARP demands the highest standards of performance and resilience from its underlying connectivity, with rigorous SLAs in place to ensure these targets are met.
In order to further optimise the availability of emergency services across the UK, there are currently two major programmes being implemented by ARP across the UK. The Control Room Solution (CRS), which is utilised by ambulance services across England and Scotland, ensuring critical communications between the emergency control room dispatchers and operational crews are completely seamless. The Mobile Data & Vehicle Solution (MDVS) will replace legacy communications equipment for the English and Welsh Ambulance Service Trusts.
Both programmes required a secure, resilient, and highly available IT infrastructure as the underlying foundation, for which ARP selected the Exponential-e Group - encompassing Exponential-e, Vysiion, and Xpertex - as their trusted technology partner.
The programme has lots of moving parts, and a lot of key users and stakeholders - all with unique needs and ways of working. ARP needed a team, processes, and technologies which could be used to create a common service, capable of integrating with each Ambulance Trust and user organisation.
Mathew Baker, IT Service Manager, ARP
The Solution
The Exponential-e Group has worked closely with ARP for a number of years, beginning with the CNAM project, which Vysiion successfully executed before its acquisition by the Group. Here, multiple critical platforms that were previously managed on a regional basis, with discrete infrastructure and applications run independently by each Trust across England and Wales, were fully centralised in ARP's data centres, including both CRS and MDVS. A whole new network was utilised as the foundation, connecting the centralised ARP control room applications to each regional Trust's control rooms. This highly resilient network infrastructure was designed to maintain the highest levels of uptime and availability across all regions, optimising the delivery of critical services.
ARP would later build on these early successes, engaging the wider Exponential-e Group as its requirements evolved. Exponential-e later delivered a fully centralised, UK-based service desk, available 24 / 7, and continues to work with ARP's own teams to identify new opportunities for service improvements and process optimisation.
Over the course of several years, the partnership between ARP and the Exponential-e Group has continued to evolve and is now in a strong position to take on further challenges. A particular focus is the digitisation of processes and onboarding of multiple new solutions to further optimise the availability and delivery of emergency services nationwide.
Solution benefits
- Full centralisation of multiple critical platforms, powered by a highly resilient, highly available private network, supporting consistent performance and availability of critical services across all regions.
- A 24 / 7, UK-based service desk for all IT-related questions, concerns, and incident management.
- A partnership built on trust, consultation, and service quality, driving ongoing improvements.
- Hands-on engagement and integration with other suppliers.
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About the Networked Fire Services Partnership (NFSP)
The Network Fire Services Partnership (NFSP) works to drive closer collaboration between fire & rescue services across Devon and Somerset, Dorset & Wiltshire, Hampshire & IOW, and Kent, operating out of four control rooms to maximise the effectiveness and availability of critical services across these regions.
The Challenge
With fire and emergency services, any downtime could cost lives, which means the quality of our underlying network and– in turn – the performance and availability of key platforms are top priorities for us.
Neil McKeever, NFSP Technical Lead
The NFSP utilises a Control and Dispatch (CAD) system to interlink its four control rooms, ensuring seamless, secure flows of data in order to maximise ease of communication and, in turn, deployment times. This system is constantly evolving to better serve citizens across the country and – ultimately – save lives.
In order to optimise the performance of the newest iteration of the CAD platform, a decision was made to split off the NFSP's underling network, utilising the existing network for day-to-day operations, while deploying a new, fully dedicated network for CAD applications.
Following a competitive tender process, the Exponential-e Group's 20-year pedigree in the design and delivery of critical infrastructure,
their experts' personal experience within a range of emergency services, and the inherent resilience of their self-owned, enterprise-class network made them a clear standout, and so they were selected as the NFSP's new networking partner, providing RO2 connectivity between the NFSP's control rooms, back-up control rooms, and the NEC data centres in which the new iteration of their CAD platform would be hosted.
Exponential-e's specialists immediately began working closely with the NFSP's own teams to establish the new network specifications and plan for a successful rollout of the new platform, while also preparing for the impending launch of the new Emergency Services Network (ESN).
The Solution
Thanks to Exponential-e's continued support, we're now in a good position for the upcoming launch of the ESN, which will open the door to further enhancements in the future.
Neil McKeever, NFSP Technical Lead
It was decided that the existing network would remain in place throughout the deployment of the new one, with the current CAD platform continuing to run on it. This would not only ensure any downtime could be completely avoided – an absolute necessity for a project of this nature – but also allow for a more intelligent, phased deployment process for the new platform, with ample scope to sandboxing, testing, and in-built redundancy until it was ready for a full-scale deployment, with the legacy platform phased out completely.
A dedicated account team took full responsibility for the design and the delivery of this new network, working with existing infrastructure where appropriate, and deploying completely new fibre where it was required. The project plan was designed so the NFSP could begin making use of individual connections as soon as they became available, in parallel with ongoing testing and deployment processes, ensuring the desired benefits could be realised as soon as possible.
This involved the most rigorous standards of performance and availability, in order to support real-time communications between the NFSP's control rooms, their colleagues, and all citizens who would need to make contact for any reason. Exponential-e's role in the Government's ESN project is critical here, ensuring the NFSP will be able to begin making use of this UK-wide network's capabilities as soon as it launches, further enhancing communication, collaboration, and responsiveness for frontline emergency service workers across the country.
Exponential-e are set to continue working with the NFSP in the years ahead, ensuring the underlying network continues to support the seamless delivery of fire and emergency services, maximising the number of lives saved.
Solution Benefits
- Highly resilient, highly secure R02 connectivity between four control rooms, their back-ups, and NEC data environments, optimising the performance and availability of a key control and command platform
- Hands-on consultation and support from a dedicated team of networking experts with years of hands-on experience across the emergency services
- A phased deployment process, managed by a dedicated account team, minimising operational disruption and maximising time-to-value
- Hands-on support from the only privately-owned British company involved in the UK Government's ESN project
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