Lincolnshire Partnership NHS FT signs five-year e-prescribing deal

Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT) has signed a five-year deal with Civica for an electronic prescribing system.

The medical director at the trust – which provides specialist health and social care services for people with a learning disability and/or mental health issues – told Digital Health News she hoped the system would ultimately safeguard patients, by reducing errors and streamlining the prescribing and administration process.

Dr Sue Elcock, medical director at LPFT, said the trust would begin piloting the system on the Francis Willis Unit some time between “August and September”, which ties into the go live date of the trust’s Servelec electronic patient record.

Elcock said the trust wants to begin with a pilot on the specialist forensic unit to ensure it is “suitable” for all aspects of the trust.

She also explained how the trust wanted to communicate effectively with staff and ensure clinicians have a “meaningful involvement”.

Elcock added: “Support from staff was vital, they often feel projects like this one is more to do with IT staff and clinicians sometimes don’t feel involved.”

Civica’s executive director for health and care, David Roots, said the supplier will support the trust in its digital transformation.

He said: “Civica Prescribing will provide Lincolnshire with a significant range of safety, quality and operational benefits to support both local and national strategic health objectives.

“We are delighted to be partnering with the trust to advance electronic prescribing and support its vision to drive digital transformation, optimise medicine management and provide the best patient care.”

In February, health and social care secretary Jeremy Hunt announced a £75 million investment to help increase the uptake of e-prescribing in secondary care.

Speaking at the time, Hunt said: “We know that if you move to electronic prescribing systems rather than paper-based systems… we can eliminate around half of errors.”