South starts SystmOne deployments

The first of nine community and child health providers in the South has gone live with SystmOne as part of project backed by £32m of central funding.

Accenture and TPP have delivered SystmOne to Dorset Healthcare University NHS Foundation Trust where it is being used by more than 500 clinicians. The trust will roll-out the system to its broader community teams over coming months.

“We are excited to be the first to launch this technology and our staff is enthusiastic about its implementation,” said Val Graves, director of community health services, Dorset Healthcare.

“The introduction of a patient administration system is a huge leap forward for both patients and staff. It will enable greater coordination of care, reduce the burden of paperwork and streamline our clinical and administration processes.”

The government has committed £32m for the child and community health programme that will see SystmOne Community, Community Hospital, Child Health and Minor Injuries modules deployed across nine providers in the south.

TPP was named as the successful bidder for the programme last December and with Accenture will supply a managed service, including application software, hosting, deployment and support, to each of the NHS organisations under separate contracts.

The four-year contracts can be extended for up to two further periods of 18 months each. The total value of the contract is £19.4m.

The eight other providers that have signed contracts are: Sirona Care & Health; Peninsula Community Health; Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust; Plymouth Community Healthcare; East Sussex Health Care NHS Trust; Kent Community Health NHS Trust; and Sussex Community NHS Trust.

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

Health minister Dan Poulter said: “electronic health records for community and child health services in the south will help improve safety, speed up care and help make sure the NHS gives the best services to patients.

“We want the NHS to continue to make progress and develop local solutions so that more health service organisations within the system can benefit from taking patient information from notepad to secure, comprehensive electronic records.”