Southern nine rolling out TPP

All nine child and community health providers in the South have now deployed at least one module from TPP’s SystmOne as part of a £32m project backed by central funding.

TPP has been deploying the system as part of the Southern Community and Child Health Programme, after all nine providers signed a contract last August.

The organisations attracted central funding for their deployments after receiving nothing under the National Programme for IT.

A TPP spokeswoman told EHI it has now added nearly one million extra patients on the system, having deployed modules for nine minor injury units, three child health surveillance units, 11 community hospitals and 111 community modules

Tony Deal, East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust’s associate director of IT, told EHI the trust has deployed a child health module and two phases of the module for community nurses.

Deal said the community nurses module has been a significant change for the trust, with nurses being equipped with tablets using a mobile application as part of the roll-out.

“It’s a big change in the way people operate, but they’re doing very well.”

He said the deployment of TPP will offer the trust significant reporting and performance management benefits, with its previous system “very limited and very aged” due to the lack of an NPfIT system.

The trust is planning to complete the deployment by the end of the year, with its focus now moving to children’s nurses and therapies modules.

The TPP spokeswoman said there have been no major issues with the deployment, with all modules going live on time or earlier than expected and positive feedback from the trusts.

“Generally speaking, people like the system – it is a change so it will take some time for them to get used to.”

The spokeswoman said the majority of deployments yet to go live are expected to be completed by the end of the year, with some taking place in early 2015.

She said TPP is also speaking to some of the providers about adding on other modules to the system, such as out-of-hours and GP units.

The nine providers who have signed contracts are: Plymouth Community Healthcare; Dorset Healthcare University NHS Foundation Trust; Sirona Healthcare; Peninsula Community Healthcare; Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust; East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust; Kent Community Health NHS Trust; Sussex Community NHS Trust and SEQOL social enterprise.