Case Study

Anon NHS Trust

What we did for Anon NHS Trust

Wingman Firewalls

Published: 24/03/2025

Project Overview

An NHS trust in the south of England which provides healthcare services to their local population of more than 600,000 residents. The Trust runs one of the largest hospitals in the south with more than 8,000 staff, 1,000 beds and 25 operating theatres.

The Challenge

Bandwidth limitations
Inefficient issue resolution
Outdated security gateways
Need for enhanced security measures

One of the Trust’s NHS partners uses Check Point firewalls and were highly complementary about SEP2’s services. On their recommendation, the NHS Trust got in touch with SEP2, initially recruiting them to install a Quantum 3600 Gateway to support their move to a new office. Utilising a breakout firewall at an office remote from the main site allowed the Trust to save on bandwidth for the hospital.

The next project was a consolidation effort, switching from the Trust’s old 15600 Security Gateways to new Maestro Hyperscale Security Gateways. SEP2 offered professional services to support the migration, including a day on-site to install the new firewalls. The 15600s were an essential part of the hospital’s external network so the smooth migration facilitated by SEP2 was crucial.

The Solution

Quantum 3600 Gateway installation
Streamlined support
Maestro Hyperscale Security Gateways
Proactive approach

The Technology team at the NHS Trust is comprised of only twelve people, each with their own area of specialisation. As a small team, having their security partner be proactive in responding to support tickets was very important.

As the Deputy Head of Technology at the Trust, puts it, “In the Technology team we should be designing and implementing solutions, not being bogged down with support stuff.” Thankfully SEP2’s excellent response times ticked the box: “The response time we get is so quick. It almost feels like by the time I’ve sent the email, and made a coffee, they’ll already have replied and have someone ready to look into it.”

Switching to Check Point’s Maestro hyperscale network security solution also helped to lessen the load on the Trust’s small team, allowing them to quickly and easily scale up. “Now that we’ve amalgamated our old Internet firewall services into that single Orchestrator, it’s one less thing to have to maintain, support, manage, upgrade…All of those painful things that come along with having to manage hardware.”

Our Partnership

SEP2 are now the NHS Trust’s incumbent partner for Check Point. Most recently the Trust purchased a new Quantum 7000 to add to their Maestro cluster. The Maestro cluster is the biggest part of the Trust’s external network, serving all Health and Social Care Network (HSCN) traffic. In the Deputy Head of Technology’s words, “if that would have gone down, it would have been a huge issue.”

Cyber Security Engineer (and graduate of SEP2’s apprentice scheme) Alex Cosgrove spent half a day on the installation. The Trust has always been impressed by SEP2’s technical knowledge, and this time was no exception.

Streamlined support with SEP2

With over 15 years of industry experience, the NHS Trust’s Deputy Head of Technology is all-too-familiar with the challenges of having “too many chefs” in the kitchen when resolving issues. He has often found himself in meetings with dozens of representatives from various companies, all attempting to fix the same problem. In contrast, SEP2’s support has proven to be remarkably efficient, typically handled by a single expert technician. He appreciates that they “just get on with it,” showcasing the streamlined and impressive support provided by SEP2.

As cyber security specialists, SEP2 excel at streamlining processes and enhancing security measures to deliver the best outcomes. The NHS Trust’s Deputy Head of Technology values their forward-thinking attitude and recalled an upcoming call with Check Point and SEP2 to explore unused features in the Check Point platform, including SandBlast for zero-day threats and web proxy capabilities. This exemplifies SEP2’s proactive approach to their partnerships, truly understanding their customers’ needs.

Building a secure future

With a steadfast partnership built on trust and efficiency, SEP2 and the NHS Trust are continually strengthening their relationship. The Trust will continue to leverage innovative solutions and proactive support with SEP2, ensuring a future where their vital operations remain secure and efficient.

Testimonials

Hear From Those We Protect

You’re vendor agnostic, which is key for growth, and your team are providing really good insights in terms of the alerts raised. They also provide meaningful context behind them, which is great for us as an organisation,”

When we hit the limits of our knowledge, it’s having SEP2 there to say, ‘Try these things first.’ That expertise on hand is really important to us.

To have people like that around our account that we can pick the phone up to and ask questions was refreshing. Ultimately, we trusted SEP2 and we trust you with our cyber security.

Often the term used is ‘you can’t see the wood for the trees’. Most organisations implement security tooling tools and you’ve got different dashboards. The idea is you put them into a single place, and leverage expert resource such as the SEP2 SOC that actually understands that data and work with it on a daily basis. They can assess it case-by-case and escalate it back to us at Funding Circle only when necessary. And that whole process has been really, really smooth.

They are phenomenal: both personable and very knowledgeable. Our main contact is like a fountain of knowledge. If you ask him a question, he always comes back with ten answers – all the shades of grey, not just a ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ To me that shows the level of passion he has, and that he really wants to do things properly.

The original group of people who founded SEP2 were very deep in their knowledge of this type of technology, which can be complicated. It’s become the whole field of firewalls, intrusion prevention, antivirus, ransomware, etc. Cyber security as a whole has really ballooned, and there’s lots of dimensions to it, but you’ve managed to keep up.

During the evaluation process it was clear to me that SEP2 were the strongest candidate from a technical standpoint. During our first meeting, their ability to give immediate solutions to ongoing issues we were experiencing at the time was a breath of fresh air.

SEP2 are knowledgeable, motivated and switched on; they take ownership and they have a drive for resolution. They know their stuff! They are not merely a firewall partner, they are a cyber security partner. They take a strategic approach. They are approachable and offer additional value outside of their support contract. Working with SEP2 means we are no longer fire-fighting; rather we can now take a step back and proactively get things sorted. SEP2 say they are tech driven and people powered, and that’s exactly what they are! It all comes down to the people you are dealing with.

They live and breathe the technology. It comes from the top, however, everyone is an expert within SEP2, from sales through to the service desk. We don’t want to wait to be told what more we can get from vendors’ products. SEP2 are great in pro-actively helping us achieve value-add solutions. They aren’t about chasing revenues, they are about providing best possible value.