Single child health info system introduced across Liverpool and Sefton

A single child health information system has been rolled out across in Liverpool and Sefton, bringing together the health records of more than 350,000 children.

System C’s CarePlus child health information system will support the protection and health of Merseyside’s children. Care professionals in the area will be able to track children from childhood through to their transition to adult services and will have access to all the relevant information to provide suitable care.

The rollout continued on schedule and went live successfully, despite the country being in Covid-19 lockdown.

Liverpool and Sefton Child Health Information Services have joined up with neighbouring Cheshire’s and are sharing the same CarePlus system to provide an integrated service.  Cheshire rolled out the CarePlus system at the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown.

NHS England and NHS Improvement (North West) commissioned SCW to replace six separate Cheshire and Merseyside Child Health Information Services in October 2019, so that all child health information is managed safely and securely in one place. System C won the contract to supply its CarePlus child health information system shortly after.

Sue Trinder, child health information services director at NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit (SCW), said: “This was an important deadline for us and I’m very pleased this new service could progress to plan, despite the very real challenges of Covid-19. We are making great ground across the regions.  Thank you to all the teams involved in making that happen.”

Final phase

St Helens & Knowsley, Wirral, Halton and Warrington Child Health Information Services are due to on-board with System C later in the year, in what will be the final phase in the delivery of a unified record for just over half a million children across the whole of the Cheshire and Merseyside region.

Once complete, the project will integrate records and services across twelve CCGs, nine local authorities, 18 specialist, acute and community trusts, 392 general practices, and six legacy child health information systems.

Liverpool and Sefton’s child health records were consolidated by migrating, and, in some cases, merging records from two instances of Health Solution Wales Community Child Health 2000 and one instance of EMIS Child Health.

Markus Bolton, joint chief executive of System C, added: “Cheshire, Liverpool and Sefton are sharing a single child health record to care and protect for their 0-19 population.  That is a great example of joined-up care across a substantial geographical area.  Congratulations to South, Central and West for getting this over the line and at a time faced with unprecedented challenges.”