Project Overview
Organisation Type
Integrated NHS healthcare system – spanning acute, community, mental health, and primary care
Situation
Following the establishment of the ITHealth Dashboard within United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (ULTH), expanding digital responsibilities across the Group structure created a need to scale visibility and oversight across an increasingly complex digital estate.
Solution
The ITHealth Dashboard evolved from a Trust-level cyber assurance tool into an emerging system-wide digital asset intelligence platform supporting visibility, assurance, and governance across the Lincolnshire health and care system.
The Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals NHS Group brings together United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (ULTH) and Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS) under a shared Board and Executive Leadership Team, while both organisations remain separate Trusts.
Digital oversight spans acute and community services, extending into GP IT services across the Integrated Care Board footprint, with Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT) onboarding also planned.
Together, these organisations form a distributed digital environment spanning acute, community, primary care, and mental health services, increasing the need for consistent system-wide oversight.
The Situation
The ITHealth Dashboard was originally deployed within United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (ULTH) in 2020 to improve visibility of the Trust’s digital estate and strengthen cyber assurance, including response to NHS England High Severity Alerts (HSAs).
Over time, ULTH’s digital remit expanded through the formation of the Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals NHS Group, extending responsibility beyond a single acute Trust environment.
This coincided with the transition of IT services previously delivered by Arden & GEM CSU, which had supported Lincolnshire Community Health Services (LCHS) and GP IT services across the Integrated Care Board footprint. As these services transitioned, responsibility for a broader and more complex digital estate moved into the Group’s digital function.
This included LCHS, GP IT services across more than 120 practices, and associated community infrastructure, with further expansion anticipated through the onboarding of Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT) for mental health services.
As responsibility shifted from a single Trust to a multi-organisation model, the need emerged for a consistent and reliable view of digital assets, software, and cyber risk across the wider system.
“The ITHealth Dashboard had already proven its value within ULTH. As our digital responsibilities expanded, it became clear that we needed that same level of visibility across every organisation and service we were supporting.”
Richard Boreham
Digital Security and Compliance Technical Lead Engineer
Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals NHS Group
The Solution
The ITHealth Dashboard had already demonstrated value within ULTH, providing a trusted foundation for visibility of the Trust’s digital estate and supporting effective cyber assurance and vulnerability management.
To support the expanded remit, the solution was extended beyond its original acute Trust deployment (covering approximately 18,000 assets), progressively onboarding additional organisations and digital environments into a single consolidated view.
The first phase of expansion commenced in August 2025 with the onboarding of Lincolnshire Community Health Services (LCHS), extending visibility across both acute and community services. At the same time, GP IT services across the Integrated Care Board footprint were brought into scope, increasing the monitored estate to approximately 28,000 assets.
Work continues to refine data feeds and complete integration of supporting sources such as Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) for unified reporting of security posture.
Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT) onboarding is also underway, extending coverage into mental health services and increasing the total coverage to 34,000 assets, further broadening system-wide visibility.
“Expanding the ITHealth Dashboard was a natural next step. We needed one place to go to understand exactly what was across the sites we now support – not just in the acute Trust, but across community, the GP estate and wider services.”
Richard Boreham
Digital Security and Compliance Technical Lead Engineer
Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals NHS Group
Results and Next Steps
The ITHealth Dashboard is now embedded within day-to-day digital operations across the Group, supporting infrastructure, security, compliance, and support teams with device discovery, software validation, vulnerability investigation, and cyber assurance activities.
At governance level, it supports cyber risk reporting and escalation, enabling more consistent identification of legacy applications, unsupported software, and vulnerability remediation gaps.
Beyond cyber assurance, improved visibility is beginning to support wider strategic objectives, including application rationalisation, development of a system-wide software catalogue, Information Asset Register maturity, and identification of technology infrastructure standardisation opportunities across providers and the GP estate.
With onboarding and data maturity still progressing across parts of the estate, the platform’s role continues to expand.
The ambition is for the ITHealth Dashboard to provide a strategic digital asset intelligence capability for the Lincolnshire health and care system – underpinning rapid HSA response, system-wide digital governance, and long-term technology rationalisation across the entire estate.
“Our aim is for the ITHealth Dashboard to become the single, trusted view of the digital estate across the entire system, enabling consistent cyber assurance and supporting system-wide standardisation and governance.”
Richard Boreham
Digital Security and Compliance Technical Lead Engineer
Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals NHS Group
