Keeping the Organ Donor Register Running Smoothly in Our Fully Managed Cloud

The NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) partnered with NEC Health to move their Organ Donor Register (ODR) to our UK-based cloud. Our team looks after the software, data and hosting together, ensuring the register is available 24/7 for life-saving decisions.

Keeping a critical service online

The NHS Organ Donor Register (ODR) holds information on the organ donation decisions of more than 30 million people. A service provided by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), it’s part of the UK’s critical national infrastructure.

The ODR receives one million new registrations every year and keeps sensitive data secure. It also needs to be available quickly and easily, 24/7, for the 250 specialist nurses who talk to families about the potential for organ donation. The value of having access to this information is clear, if someone has registered a decision to donate, their family will consent to donation 92% of the time. If no decision is recorded, the consent rate falls to 60%

Moving between clouds

The ODR first launched in 1994. NEC designed and built the current version of the ODR in 2014 and have continued to maintain the application and database ever since. The hosting,
originally managed by NHSBT, held data across two European countries in MS Azure.

With the operating system in need of an upgrade, and Britain leaving the European Union, NHSBT took the opportunity to review this set-up. They first considered whether to move the data to the UK but keep responsibility for hosting. But with the ODR running well, and NEC able to provide the right infrastructure and a single support team, they chose to make the move.

“NEC has been a trusted partner for many years now. And when we looked at the options, we had available, it made good sense – operationally and financially – to move to NEC’s cloud services.”
-Alex Hudson, Head of the NHS Organ Donor Register

Delivering a smooth migration

As well as taking new registrations, the ODR connects with a range of other systems that help people register or update their organ donation decision, including the DVLA via their driving licence application service and the NHS App, which enables real-time review and update.

The migration was planned carefully to protect both the data and its integrations and was successfully completed in November 2022. We now manage the application, data and hosting together, with a single team responsible for optimising security, performance, and availability.

“Our expertise is around effective organ donation,” says Alex, “and NEC’s is software and infrastructure. Co-creating and utilising mor–e of their expertise helps us to stay focused
on serving our registrants, potential donor families and our clinicians.”

“The ODR supports lifesaving decisions, it has to be readily available every second of every day. Moving to NEC’s fully managed cloud has proven to be a very successful partnership and solution for the registers continued success.”
-Alex Hudson, Alex Hudson Head of the Organ Donor Register, NHS Blood and Transplant