Northumbria Healthcare goes live with CLEO SOLO EPS
- 19 August 2024
- Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has launched an electronic prescription system in its pregnancy assessment unit
- CLEO SOLO allows clinicians to send prescriptions directly to the patient's nominated pharmacy
- The EPS went live in July 2024, with the contract set to roll for three years
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has announced that it has gone live with an electronic prescription system (EPS) from CLEO Systems in its pregnancy assessment unit.
The CLEO SOLO EPS was deployed by the trust in July 2024, after signing a three year contract.
The system, which was first introduced at Midlands Partnership Foundation NHS Trust in August 2022, is intending to reduce waiting times by enabling clinicians to prescribe medication electronically, which patients can collect from their nominated pharmacies.
Sarah Chandler, deputy chief pharmacist at Northumbria Healthcare, said: “This is a very exciting development for the organisation and will benefit patients and clinicians alike, especially given the geography of Northumbria.
“We hope that deploying the system helps provide more timely access to medicines and improves the patient experience”.
In a statement to Digital Health News, David Brown, managing director at CLEO Systems, said: “This is a very exciting deployment for us at CLEO Systems, as CLEO SOLO EPS is being used within a pregnancy assessment unit for the first time.
“We are looking forward to hearing about the benefits for patients and clinicians”.
Northumbria Healthcare will initially use the CLEO SOLO EPS for patients within its pregnancy assessment unit, before rolling it out to other areas.
The system uses the Health Level 7 (HL7) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) messaging standard and connects directly to the NHS Spine, meaning it does not require integration with other clinical systems to function.
Northumbria Healthcare will be the first of CLEO Systems’ customers to use an SMS functionality which allows clinicians to share prescription details via text message, CLEO said in a press release, published on 14 August 2024.
It added that SMS messages will include the Script ID of the prescription, along with directions to the community pharmacy where the prescription can be collected.
The CLEO SOLO EPS has also been deployed at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, East London NHS Foundation Trust and North East London NHS Foundation Trust.
In August 2024, GP out of hours service BrisDoc announced its plans to deploy the CLEO Core electronic patient management system within its urgent care services in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.
