North Staffordshire combined trust picks Lorenzo as its ROSE

The Department of Health has approved funding for another trust in the North, Midlands and East to deploy the Lorenzo electronic patient record from CSC.

Digital Health News reported earlier this week that the National Programme for IT in the NHS had effectively come to an end last Thursday, with the end of national contracts for trusts that had deployed Lorenzo and older iSoft products as part of the programme.

But it also reported that four more trusts were due to sign up to take the newer electronic patient record as part of a deal agreed between CSC and the company in 2012 to make money available to trusts in the NME that wanted it.

The first of these trusts is North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust, which is to deploy Lorenzo as part of a ‘Raising our Service Excellence’ or ROSE programme.

In a joint statement issued by the trust and CSC, Caroline Donovan, the chief executive, said: “We believe that being at the forefront of digital transformation within the NHS will support us to deliver our vision.

“Our aim is to go much further than replicating paper records in an electronic system; we want to use digital technology to transform the way our organisation delivers services.”

North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust provides mental health and learning disability care to people living in and around Stoke-on-Trent, and employs around 1,200 people.

In a regular blog on the trust’s website, Donovan has been outlining plans for the trust to become a “national digital exemplar for mental health”, as part of a Staffordshire ‘Together We’re Better’ transformation programme.

In a May blog post, Donovan said the trust had drawn up three business cases for the DH to support its ambitions, and that “all the signs are that we will be successful in attracting between £14 million and £15 million of support funding to implement the EPR.”

“As our plans are to have ROSE implemented by March 2017, we need to really ensure as many of our staff are engaged and involved in the next few months ensuring real ownership,” she added. “It is very positive and exciting and will make a real difference to improving lives.”

The trust/CSC statement confirms that it hopes to go live with Lorenzo in “the first half of 2017” and is planning a phased implementation. The trust and company will also build a ‘lab’ environment in which to prototype new, technology led ideas for improving services.

Following the departure of Accenture from the national programme in 2006, CSC became the local service provider for the whole of the NME.

It was contracted to deliver Lorenzo, developed by iSoft, which it later bought, to healthcare communities across the region, but the EPR was hit by development and deployment delays.

In total, the company says that 15 trusts are now live with the system. Eleven have signed up via the 2013 deal. The company has also won business outside the NME, and recently announced that it had launched the product in Australia and New Zealand.

In the UK, it is also looking at population health management, and was chosen to deliver a “first of type” care co-ordination centre in Trafford last summer.

Philippe Houssiau, CSC’s Vice President for Healthcare in the UK and Ireland, said: “Working with strategic partners to co-create new, digital-first clinical and care pathways is part of CSC’s DNA.

“The combination of North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare’s expertise and CSC’s experience of digitising care pathways will allow us to improve the experience of mental health care across the region.”

Digital Health news editor Ben Heather has investigated the Lorenzo deployments at the 11 trusts that have received central money to deploy it as part of the 2012 deal between CSC and the Department of Health.

Read about his findings, and the legacy of the national programme in the NME in features.