THE computer software for booking COVID vaccines and testing across Britain is being supplied by a Woking IT company.

ACF Technologies, in Goldsworth Road, which supplies the systems for running Universal Credit and works with major high street retailers, won the NHS contract for testing after being given three days to work up its proposal.

Simon Ronald, the business development manager, said the request for proposal was sent out on a Friday with full documentation to produced by the Monday.

Mr Ronald said that after the company’s scheme was accepted, it had four weeks to get the system up and running.

Andy Hart, the managing director, said that the company took a very similar approach when it was asked to bid for the vaccines system.

Mr Hart said the success of the bids was down to the years of experience in producing large-scale and high-quality systems.

Laurence Leach, the ACF Technology UK office technical director, said the company is handling half a million appointments a day.

“When we went live, we were the first national COVID vaccination booking system worldwide,” Mr Leach said.

“This project is probably a culmination of 10 years of experience and development within the business – making sure we have the right product, making sure we have the right people and making sure we were as prepared as possible for a large project coming our way.

“We worked long hours but everyone on the team was very happy to do so.

“This wasn’t just a standard sale, this is actually creating a solution that could help save lives, so it’s something the whole team are extremely proud to have worked on.”

Mr Leach said the systems the company is providing for the NHS could be developed for similar uses in the future.

“The pandemic could have a long-lasting effect on the way customers and business interact – less face-to-face interaction, and more virtual interaction over the phone, video calls, or even VR [virtual reality].

“We’ve been working really hard to try and adopt these technologies. We try to be as future-proof as possible, and predicting the way customer and patient experience in the future will change is a big part of that.”

ACF Technologies is based in Asheville, North Carolina and was founded in 2003.

It opened its UK office in Surrey in 2007 as part of an expansion that included Latin America and Spain and in 2015 moved into the Goldsworth Road building.

Laurence said that he and the 18 other members of staff live in Surrey or nearby and the office is likely to stay in Woking.

“There is a lot of investment going on and it has great transport links with London and the major airports,” he said.