Queen Victoria Hospital NHS FT awards Altera £10m EPR contract

Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has awarded an estimated £10 million contract for its electronic patient record system to Insight Direct, subcontracting services to Altera Digital Health.

To meet NHS England’s target for trusts to have an EPR by March 2026, Queen Victoria Hospital has procured Altera Sunrise EPR, which includes Core Clinicals, Order Comms, eObservations, Secure Health Messaging, Mobile, Patient Flow, Clinical Performance Manager, Theatres, e-Prescribing and PAS, all supported by Altera Managed Services.

The contract is set to run for an initial period of five years, taking it up to March 2029. The estimated value of the contract is £10,631,245. The award notice notes the potential for the contract to be extended for a further two years, up to a maximum contract length of seven years, bringing the overall estimated value to £12,158,471.

A fully integrated EPR has been central to the trust’s digital strategy to help enhance care and support staff to do more with connected information. The deployment of the new EPR is expected to unlock considerable efficiency savings, as the systems replace paper processes and mean staff won’t need to log into separate systems to compile patient information.

Kirstin Timmins, chief operating officer, Queen Victoria Hospital, said: “Developing an EPR is an exciting project for us and a significant part of our digital and overall organisational strategy.

“The EPR system will support us to seamlessly collaborate and deliver timely, informed care, significantly reducing the time taken to access patient information.”

Colleagues working in Queen Victoria Hospital’s community services will have remote access to the integrated record, with information being updated in real-time. Data from other NHS trusts will also be available for clinicians to view as part of the new EPR.

Altera Digital Health provides support across a range of solutions, including EPR, clinical performance management and patient flow, amongst others. In March 2023 it rolled out its Sunrise EPR solution across the three hospital sites of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, in a move to fast-track digital maturity.

Queen Victoria Hospital is the second specialist trust to select Altera’s EPR, following in the footsteps of Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust – which recently gained HIMSS Stage 7 accreditation.

Rachel Fox, executive vice president, EMEA at Altera Digital Health, said: “We are delighted to be partnership with Queen Victoria Hospital to deliver its EPR. The team’s enthusiasm for change has been amazing and staff is already seeing how transformative the impact will be. We can’t wait to get started on delivery and quickly advance the trust’s digital maturity.”