Royal Berkshire plans March go-live

Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust is planning to go-live with Cerner Millennium in March this year.

Board papers from a trust board meeting towards the end of last year say the go-live date for the electronic patient record system is 26 March 2012.

A February date was considered for the apparently delayed project.

But the board papers say it was considered too “high risk” as it would require staff training to be undertaken in the busiest and most challenging time of the year in terms of activity.

The trust quit the National Programme for IT in the NHS in 2008. EHealth Insider reported in June 2009 that it had signed a deal with University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre to deliver the Cerner Millennium system.

EHI understands that UPMC is still involved in the deployment, but the EPR is being mainly implemented by Cerner and the trust.

The board papers also outline the establishment of the position of associate medical director (information) to progress the EPR.

The head of informatics will report to this post holder and they will report to the chief medical officer and director of clinical standards.

A 24-hour help desk that will cover issues with the EPR will be run by CSC as part of a £45m outsourced IT support deal the trust signed with CSC in January last year.

Royal Berkshire was the second trust to choose UPMC for a Cerner implementation. Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was the first to go-down this route; and achieved a big-bang implementation of the system in a relatively short time-scale.

Other trusts were expected to follow, but none have. Royal Berkshire appears to be experiencing some leadership difficulties at present.

Chief executive, Ed Donald, was reported by local newspaper The Reading Chronicle to have resigned in early December following a clash with trust chairman Colin Maclean and a vote of no confidence.

However, a trust spokesman said he was on annual leave and he returned to work two weeks later.