Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS FT pens £10m deal with Civica

Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust has signed a £10million deal with Civica to develop its electronic patient record (EPR).

The eight-year deal will see the trust implement Civica’s Health and Care EPR cloud product suite, comprising of Cito Paris and Civica Prescribing. This will allow Greater Manchester to consolidate all patient data and workflow capabilities to deliver fast, effective and safe care to mental health patients.

The trust provides inpatient and community-based mental health care to around 53,000 service users in Bolton, Manchester, Salford and Trafford.

A new digital portal will give healthcare workers a real-time complete view of information while working remotely. The aim is that this will result in a better patient experience.

The deal will provide a unified EPR and case management functionality which will allow the trust to support mental health patients from first contact through to assessment care plans, management of beds for in-patient wards and prescriptions administration.

Grace Birch, associate director of information management and technology at the trust, said: “Over the past year, we’ve seen increased demand for our services as the UK’s mental health demands becomes ever more acute.

“This, combined with the availability of new technologies, saw us review our existing digital capabilities. Continuing our Civica partnership will enable us to improve care pathways and future-proof the trust.”

With potential plans to deploy a patient-facing version, the trust plans to continue innovating its services with Civica’s support. As part of the partnership, Greater Manchester will also have access to Civica’s NorthStar Innovation lab where employees and clinicians can collaborate with academia and technology experts to explore and trial new solutions for mental health provision.

Steve Brain, executive director of health and social care at Civica, added: “We are delighted to extend our partnership with GMMH [Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust].

“Our integrated EPR software platform will support the provision of seamless care pathways, with improved access to information capture and sharing and ultimately assisting with the Trust’s digital transformation and patient care for the future.”

It has been a busy few months for Civica, which also signed a ten-year contract with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in February 2021. The deal, worth £3million, will see Civica providing the cloud enabled Cito software as part of the trust’s wider Apollo EHR digital transformation programme, which centred around Epic’s suite of health care products to transform patient care.

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