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The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) office has today published a couple of new studies that evaluate the performance, delivery and value of its various public investments to help deploy gigabit-capable broadband (full fibre) connections to poorly served libraries and GP (Doctor) surgeries.
The two reports – here and here – were conducted by Belmana and GC Insight. Both examined the publicly funded impacts of the government’s “Hub” (GigaHubs) interventions, delivered through the earlier £200m Rural Gigabit Connectivity (RGC) programme and the ongoing £5bn Project Gigabit scheme.
In terms of GP surgeries. Across the GigaHubs and RGC programmes, 252 GP surgeries were connected, including 38 funded through GigaHubs. Of the connected surgeries, 51 were in England, 79 in Northern Ireland, 94 in Scotland, and 28 in Wales. Sadly we don’t get a clear figure for the number of libraries connected, but 26 such sites did take part in the related survey.