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Part of Cloud security – good practice guide

9. Appendix B - Service Classifications

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The IT services offered by NHS England are assigned a Service Classification.  

This approach reduces the complexity of service offerings and provides guidelines to making informed service choices for new services.  

Find out about each of the 4 Service Classifications by opening the expanders below.

Platinum

Service characteristics include:

  • typically, critical national services
  • absence of the system leads to complete failure of dependent systems and services with a high possibility of clinical safety issues
  • service interruption results in severe reputational damage
  • 24/7/365 support required
  • service availability of 99.9%
  • DR recovery target of 2 hours
  • monthly MI reporting
  • example service – NHS Spine
Gold

Service characteristics include:

  • predominantly transactional services
  • absence of system leads to operational difficulties that can be coped with for a limited period
  • absence of system may lead to increased risk to clinical care
  • 24/7/365 support required
  • service availability of 99.9%
  • DR recovery target of 4 hours
  • monthly MI reporting
  • example service – NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS)
Silver

Service characteristics include:

  • predominantly data capture, batch processing
  • absence of system leads to operational difficulties, but these are manageable for an extended period, such as 1 day
  • absence of system may lead to a slight increase in clinical risk
  • business hours support between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Friday, but not bank holidays
  • service availability of 99.5%
  • DR recovery optional - dependent on outcome of business impact analysis
  • monthly MI reporting
  • example service – NHS Screening Services 
Bronze

Service characteristics include:

  • business hours support between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Friday, but not bank holidays
  • service availability of 98%
  • DR recovery optional - dependent on outcome of business impact analysis
  • ad-hoc MI reporting
  • example service - Appointment Booking, Urgent and Emergency Care

Last edited: 8 January 2025 11:43 am

Chapters

  1. Cloud security – good practice guide
  2. 2. Overview of the method
  3. 3. Step 1 - understand
  4. 4. Step 2 - assess
  5. 5. Step 3 - implement
  6. 6. Step 4 - monitor
  7. 7. Document control
  8. 8. Appendix A - detailed advice and guidance
  9. 9. Appendix B - Service Classifications