Lorenzo trusts plan joint implementation

South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust and George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust plan to jointly implement the requesting and reporting module of CSC’s Lorenzo.

The trusts are planning to take the electronic patient record system under the government deal with CSC, which provides funding for trusts that present a “robust business case” for the system.

South Warwickshire has yet to have its business case for Lorenzo approved by either the trust board, or the CSC LSP Programme Board.

A report from the trust’s director of operations, due to go to the board this week, says the trust’s ‘Lorenzo Investment Case 2’ has been submitted to the Health and Social Care Information Centre within the timescales required to become an early adopter of the system.

“The trust in partnership with George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust has suggested that we arrange a joint implementation of the requesting and reporting module,” says the report.

“This is outside the standard deployment and contractual plans and so needs CSC and HSCIC approval. If agreed then the R&R module would be available to the trust six months earlier than planned.”

A deal between the government and CSC, which makes central funding available for up to 22 trusts that still want to take the system that should have been rolled out across the North, Midlands and East as part of the National Programme for IT, has had only eight takers so far.

South Warwickshire confirmed its intention to take the system in March and will submit its final business case to its board in January.

The trust’s October board minutes say that South Warwickshire is organising a “Red Team” challenge to test the final business case before it is completed.

“A meeting has been arranged on 3 December 2013 to provide an opportunity for people not involved in the project to review and challenge the assumptions and deployment plans to implement Lorenzo, leading up to the board’s final decision in January 2014,” the minutes say.

The trusts are not the first to plan Lorenzo collaborations. EHI reported earlier this year that Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust and Humber NHS Foundation Trust plan to create a unified Lorenzo electronic patient record across both trusts.

Humber went live with Lorenzo in May last year as the first mental health ‘early adopter’ under the “old” CSC’s local service provider contract for the North Midlands and East of England. Hull and East Yorkshire plan to go-live next September.