NHS department drives online collaboration across 100 dispersed UK sites

Amersham, UK – November 25, 2008 – NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), a Special Health Authority within the NHS, has placed online collaboration at the heart of its operation, using Citrix® GoToMeeting® to allow its 6,000 employees, located in more than 100 sites across the UK, to meet and work online. GoToMeeting has ensured NHSBT can establish a more flexible, responsive and efficient operation, by enabling staff to easily and regularly keep in touch with colleagues without having to travel between sites.

NHSBT is responsible for ensuring the supply of blood, organs and associated services to the NHS. Its work is varied and includes encouraging people to donate organs, blood and tissues, and raising the quality and effectiveness of blood and transplant services; and providing expert advice to other NHS organisations and the Department of Health. GoToMeeting is playing an integral role in enabling this large, dispersed team to work together in real time, streamlining the NHSBT operation to maximise productivity and reduce costs.

Using GoToMeeting, NHSBT staff can meet online and share their computer screen with all participants in order to collaborate on documents, update projects and plan logistics. Electronic drawing and annotation tools such as highlighters or arrows, combined with the ability to easily switch back and forth between presenters, ensure interactive and productive discussions.

NHSBT is also using GoToMeeting to provide all staff with mandatory training with the use of its Knowledge and Skills Framework online tool: e-KSF. Previously, these sessions were carried out in face-to-face settings, which used up valuable time travelling to off-site locations and expenditure on travel tickets, room bookings and refreshments. e-KSF sessions are now undertaken online on an ad-hoc basis using GoToMeeting. Tutors also use GoToMeeting to follow-up with employees and assess their progress between sessions.

“NHSBT is tasked with providing a reliable and efficient service, and one that drives economies of scale and costs savings into the NHS. GoToMeeting has provided us with the ideal solution,” said Mark Carter, Desktop Services Manager, NHSBT. “Through online collaboration, we have significantly reduced staff travel which has in turn enhanced productivity across the organisation. Because GoToMeeting is easy to set up and so intuitive to use, take-up across NHSBT has been incredibly quick. Our training department rapidly saw the benefits in terms of cost-savings and productivity and are already planning to increase their usage in the future.”

“In the current financial climate, it is crucial that companies start looking at ways to reduce costs and get the most productivity from their staff, and GoToMeeting is allowing NHSBT to do both. It is uniting an organisation with over 100 locations, ensuring consistent training for all its employees, and allowing them to easily, frequently and affordably stay in touch with colleagues, partners and suppliers,” said Bernardo de Albergaria, Vice President and General Manager, Global Marketing and E-commerce for Citrix Online.

About Citrix Online
Citrix Online provides secure, easy-to-use online solutions that enable people to work from anywhere with anyone. Whether using GoToMyPC® to access and work on a remote PC, GoToAssist® to support customers, GoToMeeting® to hold online meetings or GoToWebinar® for large online events, our customers are increasing productivity, decreasing travel costs and improving sales, training and service on a global basis. We have more than 35,000 small and medium-sized businesses using our products, and hundreds of thousands of individual professionals as customers. A division of Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), Citrix Online is based in Santa Barbara, California, with satellite offices and data centres throughout the world. For more information, visit www.citrixonline.com or call 805-690-6400.

About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the global leader and the most trusted name in application delivery infrastructure. More than 215,000 organizations worldwide rely on Citrix to deliver any application to users anywhere with the best performance, highest security and lowest cost. Citrix customers include 100 percent of the Fortune 100 companies and 99 percent of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers. Citrix has approximately 8,000 partners in more than 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2007 was $1.4 billion.