Platinum Nursing Care and Cyber Essentials – A Case Study

Platinum Nursing Care is a care home with nursing based in Coventry, specialising in looking after people living with dementia. Their motto of “People Above All Else” is centred around 4 core values of: quality, care, pride, and happiness.

Testament to this commitment to delivering first-class customer care is their recent success in being awarded Cyber Essentials accreditation. Congratulations, Platinum Nursing Care!

The Cyber Essentials scheme is backed by the UK government and helps protect organisations, regardless of size, from a wide range of the most common cyber-attacks. Such is its effectiveness, that it’s mandatory for any organisation bidding for central government contracts which involve handling sensitive and personal information to hold the accreditation.

When Platinum Nursing Care identified the requirement to undergo the Cyber Essentials process, we, at Hubtel IT, were delighted to set them on their journey. Since its launch in 2014 by the National Cyber Security Centre, Cyber Essentials is now widely regarded as one of the best ways for any organisation to mitigate security risks. And with cybercrime rising year on year, can you afford not to have it?

Receiving Cyber Essentials accreditation gives confidence to your current and potential customers and suppliers that your network infrastructure is secure and robust, which can set you apart from your competitors. This was of particular importance to Platinum Nursing Care due to the amount of sensitive and personal data they hold for their residents.

Marie Gauntlett, Account Manager at Hubtel IT, has worked with Platinum Nursing Care for several years providing both hosted telephony and IT support solutions. She said:

“We started Platinum Nursing Care on their journey by registering them with Cyber Smart, a Cyber Essentials and GDPR compliance evaluation and monitoring platform, with whom Hubtel IT has built an excellent relationship over the past few years, via our partnership with Brigantia Partners. From there, we conducted a thorough audit of their current IT infrastructure against the 5 key controls required to meet the Cyber Essentials standard and documented the findings.”

These 5 key controls are:

• Firewalls and Internet gateways
• Secure configuration
• Access control
• Malware protection
• Patch management

This information was entered into the Cyber Smart portal along with supporting evidence and information used to define the scope of the certification.

The primary benefit of using the Cyber Smart solution for submission is that information can be vetted before being sent to the certification body, to make certain all inputs are correct, reducing the risk of a failed submission for inaccurate information.

The submission process was completed within a few days and notification of success was received 24 hours later.

Nick Horncastle the Managing Director of Platinum Nursing Care commented that: “We were surprised at how relatively painless it was to achieve Cyber Essentials. When you read up on the scheme, it sounds quite time-consuming and expensive but, it was neither. There was some remedial work needed which Hubtel IT handled behind the scenes, and we were extremely pleased to have passed the accreditation first time.”

Being Cyber Essentials accredited is great news for Platinum Nursing Care. It demonstrates their forward-thinking approach to the care industry and reassures the families of their residents that their data is handled and stored securely.

If you would like more information on certifying your business to the Cyber Essentials standard, give Hubtel IT a call on 01675 466637, email enquiries@hubtelit.co.uk or click here for more information.