The NHS has extended a networking deal with Novell, covering security and workload management for cloud applications, it was has been widely reported.

The agreement is worth around £6m and will run for up to five years. The supplier’s Secure Login software will aim to improve access controls for different types of hospital records.

Mark Ferrar, strategy director at the NHS, told Computer World UK that using an open source-based system “not only reduces costs, but will also underpin two key strategic initiatives for the NHS – reducing our environmental impact and moving towards a cloud computing environment”.