NME trusts push back Lorenzo go-lives

Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust and Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust have put back April go-live dates for the Lorenzo electronic patient record.

Hull and East Yorkshire has delayed the go-live from 27 April to 8 June.

It is the second delay for the trust, which originally intended to go-live with CSC’s EPR in September 2014, but pushed back the deployment until this month “to ensure our deployment date is safe, and provides us with a system that meets our expectations”.

A spokesman from Hull and East Yorkshire confirmed to EHI News that the plan has been further delayed due to a “few last little tweaks” on the side of CSC.

“We’re really just waiting for them to finish what they are doing before hitting that button.”

Norfolk and Suffolk had planned to deploy Lorenzo this month, but this has been moved to a “few weeks further on” to ensure staff are trained and familiar with the EPR. 

A spokesperson commented: “this adjusted timescale will have no impact upon our patients, while the new system will significantly improve patient information and record management, putting it directly at clinicians’ fingertips.”

Hull and East Yorkshire revealed in January 2013 that it had committed to take Lorenzo to replace the existing iSoft PatientCentre system, also provided by CSC, while Norfolk and Suffolk confirmed its intentions in spring last year.

Norfolk and Suffolk was the first mental health trust to commit to taking Lorenzo under the revised agreement between the Department of Health and CSC following the break-up of the National Programme for IT, which intended for Lorenzo to be installed across all NME trusts but was halted due to troubles in deploying and implementing the system.

The government renegotiated the contract with CSC in 2013, removing the company’s exclusive rights to provide IT systems to trusts in the NME region, but making central funding available for trusts to purchase Lorenzo if they wanted it. 

Several NHS trusts in the NME region have already gone live with Lorenzo after taking advantage of the extra government funding, including; Barnsley Hospital; Derby Hospitals; George Eliot; Ipswich Hospital; South Warwickshire; Tameside Hospital; and Walsall Healthcare.

Both Warrington and Halton Hospitals and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Rrusts are planning to go live with the system by the end of the year.

Mental health provider Humber NHS Foundation Trust, which went live with Lorenzo in May 2012, had previously agreed with the neighbouring Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals to create a unified Lorenzo electronic patient record across both trusts.

However, these plans may now need to be reconsidered as Humber is debating the future of Lorenzo as its EPR, with board papers published earlier this year indicating that financial pressures could force it to move to a ‘best of breed’ approach on a local contract.