100% Community Deployments in Yorkshire and the Humber

Thanks to Yorkshire and the Humber SHA for providing this news item, first published in the NHS Yorkshire and the Humber Newslink, November 2008.

With the introduction of SystmOne in Calderdale PCT in September 2008, every PCT in Yorkshire and the Humber has now implemented a local service provider community system. Last month over 8,000 staff including 500 new users logged on to the LSP community system, SystmOne, across Yorkshire and the Humber.

Tony Megaw, Head of Programme Management for Primary Care at NHS Yorkshire and the Humber said, "This is a fantastic achievement and demonstrates the significant contribution that community staff are making in delivery of the NPfIT vision of integrated systems and shared detailed care records.”

Calderdale Primary Care Trust has made the vision of a more modern, patient-led NHS a reality by completing Yorkshire and the Humber’s Community deployments of the LSP solution.  This is the final deployment which started in Summer 2008 and will include District Nursing, Health Visiting, School Nursing and specialist nursing. After a rapid implementation, the PCT went live in October with the first service being Long Term Conditions. 

Community Matrons at Calderdale PCT Sheila Kalanovic, Lisa Roxburgh, Brenda Mallinson, Maggie Shepley, Andrea Beevers and Tracy Sharp enjoying a training session on SystmOne Community

Ultimately benefits of the system for the staff will be numerous.  The aim is to have one complete clinical record with everything held on the system about the patient. Staff are more well informed about a patient’s care and treatment by having a more overall picture.  The patient doesn’t need to duplicate information by giving the same details to various clinicians as the information is already there.  The project team enhanced the system by creating new local templates for clinical documentation, tailoring the templates to support the requirements of each service.

As part of the implementation, an IT audit was undertaken and new PCs were brought in where appropriate to replace out -of-date equipment.

A training programme for each service is planned as part of the roll out.  The training is tailored to meet the needs of the staff and the modules they need to use during a two-day training course.  Lessons learnt from the Kirklees implementation were useful when planning the course.

A huge piece of work was undertaken with regard to Business Change led by Elaine Gomersall at The Health Informatics Service.  The project team had meetings with services to see how they were currently working and what they needed to know and do in the future. The project team worked with key representatives to find out what information they needed to collate and configured the system accordingly. 

Feedback from the staff so far has been positive and they can see the benefits when collating performance monitoring data and statistics, making the process more efficient. 

Nick Allan-Smith, Assistant CIO for Business Change at NHS Yorkshire and the Humber, said: “Deploying a common IT system across such a wide service is a great platform for service reform and improved patient care. Being able to share records opens up enormous opportunities for realising benefits. Sharing information enables health professionals to support and guide patients through the system, avoiding duplication of questions and potentially tests, saving time chasing up to date notes and ensuring consistency of care across the spectrum of care settings and service providers.”

Standardisation at local level was an important part of the process, which was used to standardise documents, letters and codes.  Starting off with a blank database when populating the system kept the process consistent.  For example, the Health Visiting Service in Kirklees had several different versions of the same letter, and the process enabled the letter to be standarised, giving a more consistent approach to the service.

The next step will be to consolidate how the system is used and to work with staff to ensure the system is used to its full potential.   They will then look at other developments later on with mobile working being a key development in the next stage. Future integration capability and sharing of knowledge are also important upcoming areas.

Several PCTs asked for assistance with exploring the reporting functionality within TPP SystmOne community deployments. In order to fully understand the issues and requirements NHS Yorkshire and the Humber and TPP supported a workshop on the subject in October. The workshop provided PCTs with the opportunity to work with TPP and the SHA to explore how the existing functionality can be best used and gathered requirements for future development.  The day was a great success and attracted a lot of interest with the event being oversubscribed.

Elaine Gomersall concludes: "Technology is very important to modern healthcare.  If you look at where we were in the early '90s and the number of PCs we had in the organisation, you can see we have made great strides in modernising services.  IT aids communications, and not just for clinical practice - for example email and access to the web makes our job easier and more efficient.  I have worked in the NHS for 33 years, 22 of which have been in community and lived through many different IT systems and have found SystmOne to be a great improvement as it is intuitive and user-friendly.   It can enforce a change in working practices by streamlining and improving operational processes.  A key element to the success of this project was the ongoing support to staff.  If you can work with staff rather than just giving them something you have a better chance of succeeding."