System C to deliver unified child health record in South West England

System C has been awarded a contract to deliver a shared child health information system in the South West of England.

System C’s CarePlus software will be used to integrate 708,000 child health records across South Gloucester, Bristol, Somerset and North Somerset, Devon, Torbay, Plymouth and Cornwall.

The system, due to go live in September, will combine data from 10 acute hospitals in the South West in addition to five clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), 376 GP practices and nine local authorities.

James Bolt, head of public health commissioning, NHS England South West, said: “Health professionals will be able to manage queries about the health status of an individual child and populations much more efficiently and effectively via a single system. The result will be safer and more joined up care.”

CarePlus records information such as immunisations and vaccinations from birth to 19 years old, allowing care professionals to track children through their preschool and school years.

The system is able to integrate with third-party IT systems and services, including those used by schools, maternity providers, blood spot screening laboratories, health visitor teams and newborn hearing programme providers.

The project follows an NHS England South procurement run in 2017, which was won by Health Intelligence with System C as its IT partner.

John Grayland, head of child health services at Health Intelligence, said: “We are very excited to have been chosen to provide the Child Health Information Service in the South West of England. We will be responsible for approx. 708,000 children and have chosen CarePlus as the best software to enable us to run an effective service.”

System C has already completed large-scale shared record projects for the South Central, West Midlands and Greater Manchester areas, as well as Greater London.

The firm is signed up to deliver the technical capability behind the Greater Manchester Local Health and Care Record Exemplar (LHCRE) project.

According to System C, the latest contract win will increase the number of child care records managed by CarePlus to 5.4 million.

Markus Bolton, joint chief executive of System C, added: “We are very pleased to see multiple small child health systems replaced by these large footprint solutions in this way, because they are safer and users can manage children’s records much more efficiently.

“We are looking forward to working with our partners in the South West.”

Other attempts to enable care professionals to more accurately track children’s health include a “digital redbook” project being pioneered by the Lancashire and South Cumbria ICS and InterSystems.