Block Solutions Ltd

Clinical Workspace Service (VDI)

Block’s Clinical Workspace is a cloud-based virtual desktop service that gives care workers access to all the clinical systems, information and tools they need to provide safe, effective care services securely from any location.

Features

  • Secure remote access to clinical applications using any device
  • Supports a wide range of clinical systems and devices
  • Rapid deployment
  • HSCN connectivity included
  • Meets Clinical Risk Management standards (DCB0129)
  • Complete managed service based on pre-defined SLA and XLA
  • Self-service portal can be used to quickly deliver required change
  • Multi-factor authentication included
  • Simple, predictable per-user per-month cost model
  • All features are listed in the Service Description

Benefits

  • Access clinical information and support tools from any location
  • Deliver a secure and effective remote working solution
  • Drive estates rationalisation programmes
  • Support the delivery of new services and initiatives
  • Provide an effective Business Continuity Plan (BCP)
  • Reduce staff travel time and costs
  • Reduce IT issues and delays
  • Optimised for clinical systems and processes
  • Deliver an assured and compliant desktop
  • Support locum and agency staff

Pricing

£59.00 a user a month

Service documents

Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at BidManagement@block.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 13

Service ID

4 5 7 3 1 8 9 9 0 7 6 8 5 1 4

Contact

Block Solutions Ltd Jenna Horton
Telephone: 01270446707
Email: BidManagement@block.co.uk

Service scope

Service constraints
Subject to a non-chargeable service scoping exercise
System requirements
Full system requirements are detailed in the Service Description

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Email or online ticketing
Support response times
Block's response times vary based on priority:

Priority 1: 30 mins
Priority 2: 30 mins

(P1 - P2 SLA (24x7 including bank and public holidays)

Priority 3: 2 hours
Priority 4: 4 hours
Priority 5: 1 day

P3 – P5 SLA (08:00 – 18:00, Monday-Friday, excluding Bank and public holidays)
User can manage status and priority of support tickets
Yes
Online ticketing support accessibility
WCAG 2.1 AAA
Phone support
Yes
Phone support availability
24 hours, 7 days a week
Web chat support
Web chat
Web chat support availability
24 hours, 7 days a week
Web chat support accessibility standard
WCAG 2.1 AAA
Web chat accessibility testing
N/A
Onsite support
Yes, at extra cost
Support levels
24x7x365 Technical Support
Customer Success Manager (available on request)
Support available to third parties
Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
User guide
Onsite user onboarding service (additional charge)
Service documentation
Yes
Documentation formats
  • HTML
  • PDF
End-of-contract data extraction
Customer migration of data from the service
Data migration service provided by Block (chargeable)
End-of-contract process
Data is migrated to customer defined location. Once completed all customer data is deleted from the cloud platform.

Full off-boarding documentation can be provided to the customer on request.

Using the service

Web browser interface
Yes
Using the web interface
Logon to the service
Change their password for the service
Web interface accessibility standard
WCAG 2.1 AAA
Web interface accessibility testing
Tested and approved at GP, Practice Management and IT level within the NHS.
API
No
Command line interface
No

Scaling

Scaling available
Yes
Scaling type
  • Automatic
  • Manual
Independence of resources
Each user accesses a dedicated virtual desktop that runs on Microsoft Azure cloud services.
Usage notifications
Yes
Usage reporting
  • Email
  • SMS
  • Other

Analytics

Infrastructure or application metrics
Yes
Metrics types
  • CPU
  • Disk
  • Memory
  • Network
  • Number of active instances
Reporting types
  • Real-time dashboards
  • Regular reports
  • Reports on request

Resellers

Supplier type
Not a reseller

Staff security

Staff security clearance
Staff screening not performed
Government security clearance
Up to Security Clearance (SC)

Asset protection

Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
Yes
Data storage and processing locations
United Kingdom
User control over data storage and processing locations
Yes
Datacentre security standards
Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
Penetration testing frequency
At least once a year
Penetration testing approach
‘IT Health Check’ performed by a Tigerscheme qualified provider or a CREST-approved service provider
Protecting data at rest
  • Physical access control, complying with CSA CCM v3.0
  • Encryption of all physical media
  • Scale, obfuscating techniques, or data storage sharding
Data sanitisation process
Yes
Data sanitisation type
  • Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
  • Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
Equipment disposal approach
A third-party destruction service

Backup and recovery

Backup and recovery
Yes
What’s backed up
  • User profile data
  • User documents (if stored within the service)
  • Virtual machine gold images
  • Cloud infrastructure services
Backup controls
Files stored within the service can be restored using the self-service portal (or by logging a service request)
Datacentre setup
  • Multiple datacentres with disaster recovery
  • Multiple datacentres
  • Single datacentre with multiple copies
Scheduling backups
Supplier controls the whole backup schedule
Backup recovery
  • Users can recover backups themselves, for example through a web interface
  • Users contact the support team

Data-in-transit protection

Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
  • Private network or public sector network
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
Data protection within supplier network
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
99.99% Uptime SLA
Approach to resilience
Service deployed across multiple datacentres in multiple UK public cloud regions.
Within each datacentre, the service is deployed across a minimum of 3 nodes within an availability set.
Outage reporting
Block will provide a public dashboard which sets out the platform availability and response times that is real time, but providing a real time 30 day historical view.
All outages are reported via the Block Operations Centre (BOC)

Identity and authentication

User authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Limited access network (for example PSN)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
N/A
Access restriction testing frequency
At least once a year
Management access authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Limited access network (for example PSN)
Devices users manage the service through
  • Dedicated device on a segregated network (providers own provision)
  • Dedicated device on a government network (for example PSN)
  • Dedicated device over multiple services or networks
  • Any device but through a bastion host (a bastion host is a server that provides access to a private network from an external network such as the internet)

Audit information for users

Access to user activity audit information
Users contact the support team to get audit information
How long user audit data is stored for
At least 12 months
Access to supplier activity audit information
Users contact the support team to get audit information
How long supplier audit data is stored for
At least 12 months
How long system logs are stored for
At least 12 months

Standards and certifications

ISO/IEC 27001 certification
Yes
Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001
The British Assessment Bureau
ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
29/04/2022
What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
Block are fully compliant
ISO 28000:2007 certification
No
CSA STAR certification
No
PCI certification
No
Cyber essentials
No
Cyber essentials plus
No
Other security certifications
No

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security
Yes
Security governance certified
Yes
Security governance standards
ISO/IEC 27001
Information security policies and processes
Blocks security management system is based on ISO 27001, with regular internal and external audits.
Security is the responsibility of our CEO.

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Supplier-defined controls
Configuration and change management approach
Block’s ITIL aligned Change and Configuration Management process encompasses changes regardless of size or complexity:
• Changes are recorded, evaluated, prioritised, planned, tested, implemented, documented and reviewed within Service Now;
• Changes are recorded against the configuration items;
• Availability of the infrastructure, protecting from disruptive changes, unacceptable or unaccounted security risks.
The process recognises three types of changes:
• Standard – records service requests and internal changes (i.e. low or no operational impact).
• Normal – needs technical sign off.
• Emergency – required for implementation immediately, used for critical issues where quality or degradation of performance may occur.
Vulnerability management type
Supplier-defined controls
Vulnerability management approach
Block’s approach to vulnerability management extends the life of a customer’s environment and increases the value of the technology investment with regular software updates and upgrades.
In the event a critical severity alert is identified the Operations Centre will raise a P1/P2 Problem record and work with the customer to resolve immediately.
In addition, Block also carry out regular regression testing whilst also monitoring zero day release threats. Block provides hardware and software updates through our service.
Protective monitoring type
Supplier-defined controls
Protective monitoring approach
Lock provide proactive monitoring of the environment capturing all events that are or have potential to become Incidents, these are automatically logged into the Service Management system for triage.
Block monitors the health of the components in the Azure environment by fully utilising the built-in Azure Monitor toolset, polling the appropriate hardware and software health statistics that provide immediate insight into potential issues.
Monitoring data is alerted upon where immediate action is required allowing for a quick response, whilst also being collected and retained for visual representation of key trend analysis, performance indicators and compliance status.
Incident management type
Supplier-defined controls
Incident management approach
Block utilises an ITIL aligned Incident Management process. Incidents are managed according to the process, encompassing all failures, faults, bugs and security risks across the supported infrastructure.
Incidents are raised through the following channels:
• Telephone – 0844 9671644 or 0344 9671644 (local rate)
• E-mail – support@block.co.uk
• Via Service Now

Customers are provided with a Live Dashboard which displays all open, closed incidents and their success against SLA’s. In addition to this the customers Service Manager produces a written report with a detailed analysis of the incident management performance.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice
Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)

Separation between users

Virtualisation technology used to keep applications and users sharing the same infrastructure apart
Yes
Who implements virtualisation
Supplier
Virtualisation technologies used
Other
Other virtualisation technology used
Microsoft Azure (cloud)
How shared infrastructure is kept separate
A virtual network dedicated to each customer, with each network protected by network security groups (NSG), and firewall services.

Energy efficiency

Energy-efficient datacentres
Yes
Description of energy efficient datacentres
The service runs within Microsoft Azure datacentres

Social Value

Wellbeing

Wellbeing

Wellbeing is a fundamental part of Block’s people-centric culture. Our ways of working have been designed to provide the optimum working environment along with the education, enablement and resources to empower our people to take the very best care of their wellbeing. This is delivered through a blend of benefits, perks and policy.

Knowing that wellbeing can mean different things to different people, Block provides a broad range of activities and initiatives such as Financial Wellbeing Webinars, Nutritional Advice & Coaching, Personal Development Workshops and Social & Environmental Impact Initiatives. In addition, gamification of wellbeing through challenges that incorporate mental and physical health also provides team members with a sense of challenge and achievement.

Benefits such as Private Medical Insurance, Health Cash Plans and Counselling & Therapy Support provide team members (and their families) with access to critical personal care services, enabling them to feel in control of their physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing.

Block’s ‘Hybrid Working’ policy gives our people the flexibility to plan their working week in a way that works for them through a blend of home and office-based working. Team members benefit from the cultural, social and collaborative aspects of office-based working whilst also having a quieter setting at home for more individual focus tasks. Hybrid working provides our people with greater freedom and autonomy through a balanced hybrid approach.

Most significant, however, are Block’s founding values: Stand Together, Be Responsible, Think Differently, Get Excited and Go Beyond. These values act as the supporting framework for decision making for our people and are incorporated into all fundamental business processes, such as review & performance, recruitment & selection and reward & progression. In turn, this ensures a modern, people-first organisation and culture.

Pricing

Price
£59.00 a user a month
Discount for educational organisations
Yes
Free trial available
Yes
Description of free trial
Standard trial period is available for 5 users for 14 days.
Link to free trial
https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/apps/blocksolutionsltd1589460165162.blk-clincial-workspace?tab=Overview

Service documents

Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at BidManagement@block.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.