Chesterfield chooses Medway

Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has selected System C to supply its replacement patient administration system.

Chesterfield is the ninth of the 26 trusts running McKesson’s legacy Totalcare or STAR systems to choose to implement the Medway PAS from System C, a McKesson company.

A trust spokesperson  told EHI that it hopes to go live next year before the support contract for the current system expires in March 2014.

“There is a lot of work to be done, but we hope to be able to implement the new system and make it live by the middle of 2014.”

The support contract for the legacy McKesson systems was signed in 2006 and enabled 26 trusts in England, 18 of which are in the North, Midlands and East, to keep or deploy their systems until NPfIT systems became available.

Chesterfield has run the Totalcare PAS since 1984 and went out to tender in December last year. It spent a lot of time assessing providers before deciding on the Medway system.

“System C were chosen following an incredibly thorough tendering system that involved more than 150 PAS users attending several demonstration sessions with representatives from the provider,” said the spokesperson.

“We were very impressed with what they were able to show and have spoken with and answered questions from members of staff across the trust before the project has even gone live.”

The trust’s original tender said it wants a system that will be capable of forming the basis of an electronic patient record system and is also interested in the possibility of implementing a clinical portal in the future.

“We are expecting the contracts to be signed in the next few weeks and System C will be on site from 16 September, which is when the project to implement the new PAS system really begins,” said the trust spokesperson.

Other Totalcare sites that have gone for the Medway system are: Whittington Health, Colchester University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust; Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals NHS Trust; Basildon and Thurrock University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Sheffield Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust.

Both Colchester and Southend were due to go live earlier this year, but have delayed their deployments. Whittington Health plans to roll out the Medway PAS next month.