HSCN supplier performance data

We use the following performance metrics in our published data:

We record the number of incidents each supplier has each month where the impact is severe enough to be recorded as a High Severity Service Incident. These incidents must meet strict criteria to be classified as a HSSI which is as follows:

An incident which:

• constitutes a loss of the service which prevents any traffic from routing correctly for multiple customers
• disconnection from any of the HSCN central capabilities
• has a critical impact on the activities of multiple customers
• causes significant financial loss and/or disruption to multiple customers
• constitutes a critical security risk

Examples include:

• loss of interconnect between a CN-SP and the Secure Boundary Service that results in a loss of internet connectivity for one or more HSCN consumers
• loss of interconnect between a CNSP and a Peering Exchange Network Provider that results in a loss of connectivity for one or more HSCN consumers
• loss of interconnect between a CNSP and the Network Analytics Service that results in the CNSP not sending Network Traffic Information to NHS England
• failure of any core component within the CNSPs boundary which results in an outage for multiple consumers
• failure of a supporting component (such as a fibre) provided by a key strategic supplier resulting in an outage for HSCN consumers
• any network security incident within a CNSP’s service boundary

Each supplier provides a monthly list of all the network connections they have for the Health and Social Care Network. The supplier also tells us how many connections were affected by a High Severity Service Incident as part of the report they send to NHS England. 

We show how many connections were affected by a particular incident as a percentage. Where there is more than one incident from a particular supplier in a month, we add the connections affected and show an overall percentage.

Following a High Severity Service Incident, the affected supplier sends NHS England a report that details the impact, the root cause and the follow up actions of that incident.

We take the time in minutes between when the incident began and when they resolved the incident and restored service. When a supplier has more than one HSSI in a month, we take the average of those time periods.

This is the overall availability of a supplier’s Wide Area Network which is provided to us by each supplier every month. The diagram below shows the demarcation of how each part of the network availability is measured. This part is described in the diagram as TOPS12.

This is the overall availability of a supplier’s connection to the HSCN Peering Exchange, which is provided by each supplier every month. The Peering Exchange allows the interconnection of multiple supplier networks, enabling HSCN consumers using different network suppliers, to reliably communicate. The diagram below shows the demarcation of how each part of the network availability is measured.

This part is described in the diagram as TOPS13.

This is the availability percentage of a supplier’s connection to each of its individual customers, which is provided by each CNSP as part of their monthly performance report. The supplier lists each individual connection and the availability of that connection each month. We take a percentage of the total connections that have met their availability target.

For example, if a supplier has 150 customer connections and 2 have missed their availability target, that supplier will score 98.67% for that month. The diagram below shows the demarcation of how each part of the network availability is measured. This part is described in the diagram as TOPS13A.