NHS Bury experiences issues with Lorenzo

NHS Bury, the first trust to go-live with Lorenzo Regional Care Release 1.9, is experiencing continual issues with the system’s reporting functionality.

Documents on the PCT’s website make references to problems with the iSoft electronic patient record, with which it went live at the start of November.

The documents indicate the PCT is having difficulties monitoring performance and the 18 week referral to treatment time target.

They also indicate the problems have delayed the creation of a business management centre for its provider services and the deployment of further functionality.

A business plan for the PCT’s provider services, published at the beginning of April, states: “Lorenzo Regional Care reporting issues are impacting our ability to effectively monitor performance against contracts and respond to business opportunities.”

It says Lorenzo “issues” are delaying the roll out of a new business management centre, which is wanted to manage provider services, handle improvement programmes and improve communications.

The business plan also identifies as a risk the “disengagement of staff due to ongoing system issues and speed of access.”

The PCT’s integrated performance report, also published in April, states that there are “limited resources within the PCT team to support the introduction of Lorenzo regional care.”

Board papers published earlier this year indicate that the problems are ongoing.

A February community services board paper says: “The action to monitor waiting times inline with 18 week targets and the action to implement phases one and two of the business management centre, [have] been delayed due to difficulties experienced with Lorenzo Regional Care.

“Despite the system supplier being informed of all the issues, and other ways having been tried to influence and engage, it would appear to be a matter of time before all current difficulties for community services Bury [are] resolved and it [is] unfortunate that this has been a much bigger issue in terms of impacting services than initially realised.”

Ann Halpin, associate director of IM&T at NHS Bury told EHI in a statement: “There have been a number of manageable issues during the early stages of the system.

" Many of these have already been resolved or are planned to be resolved during upgrades in the near future. We are currently rolling out front end reports in phases depending on the priority for the trust.

“None of the issues are impacting on the ability of clinical staff to see or treat patients and this is not having a significant impact on the functioning of the trust.”

The trust also confirmed that it is yet to sign the deployment verification certificate that enables local service provider CSC to be paid for the implementation.

Halpin added: “The trust is working closely with CSC, NHS Connecting for Health and NHS North West to ensure that all of the deployment verification criteria are met. This is expected to take place in the coming weeks.”

Following the deployment of Lorenzo R1.9, which is being used to manage referrals, clinics and patient contracts, the trust is working to deploy clinical documentation to a small number of services.

Document links: Integrated Performance Report published 13/04/10

Integrated Assurance Framework Board papers 12/04/10

Minutes from Community Services Bury Board Meeting-08/02/10

Community Services Bury Business Plan 2010/2011