BigHand is delighted to announce it has been accepted onto the G-Cloud 8 framework, allowing any central or local UK government department or NHS Trust to procure its cloud-based dictation and speech recognition system ‘BigHand Professional’ more easily.

When seeking to upgrade older dictation technologies and unlock greater administrative productivity, government buyers will be able to locate and procure BigHand Professional on ‘The Digital Marketplace’ - a tool that helps buyers find approved cloud technology and specialist services for digital projects. To June 2016, over £1.2billion has been reported in G-Cloud sales via the Digital Marketplace.

The G-Cloud framework itself is an agreement between the government and suppliers who provide cloud-based services. UK Government buyers will be able to carry out an initial search on the Digital Marketplace using keywords to search for a Service Description which meets their technical and commercial requirements. G-Cloud services are divided into 4 categories, or ‘lots’ as follows:

• Infrastructure as a Service
• Platform as a Service
• Software as a Service
• Specialist Cloud Services

BigHand technology is listed under the ‘Software as a Service (SaaS)’ lot, with BigHand Professional the one of the only voice productivity applications currently approved. Buyers and suppliers still need to sign a contract (or ‘call-off contract’) for each service bought through a framework, but G-Cloud significantly streamlines a traditionally lengthy procurement process.

Dan Speed, Managing Director, Cloud Services at BigHand, commented: “We have been supplying cloud-based dictation technology to the NHS for some time via our secure N3 network, but while there is strong demand for our technology accessing it can sometimes be complicated by a long process of procurement and tendering. Buying services through frameworks is faster and cheaper than entering into individual procurement contracts so we are delighted our cloud technology is now available to all Government bodies nationwide in this way. If you are replacing analogue or upgrading older digital dictation systems then you should consider assessing the options on the Digital Marketplace as a first step – as it may make the whole thing a lot simpler and cost effective."