If you missed any of last week’s HTN Now 2021 events as they aired live, you can now find a video recording of every session online. Here we recap the session with David Newey, Deputy Chief Information Officer (DCIO) at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and his talk on the trust’s COVID-19 response.
Topics included digital support for both clinicians and patients, as David explained the challenges his team at the Royal Marsden faced and how they helped with the delivery of uninterrupted cancer care.
The Chelsea and Sutton-based trust is rated ‘outstanding’ by the CQC (Care Quality Commission) and is widely considered to be among the top three cancer hospitals in the world.
So it was crucial for it to continue treating its some 55,000 patients per year, even in the face of the pandemic.
David first told us about the cancer hospital’s swift COVID response and pre-emptive actions. He explained: “I kept a kind of weather eye on this…alarm bells started ringing in my head once I started seeing the effect it was having in Iran.
“Once we saw that was the way it was going, I decided to make a point of going and purchasing mobile phones and laptops for literally the entire support desk.”
With an ‘older’ electronic estate, David said his goal was to figure out how they could provide “ongoing business support as usual”. But his focus was also on minimising disruption for staff and patients.
“Instead of paying £1,000 for a new laptop and docking station, monitor etc, we saved half a million pounds by moving to VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure). It meant that we were able to provide it overnight and use people’s existing capability at home.
“We were able to continue social distancing and continue working in terms of treating cancer patients. We maintained somewhere between 70-80% of our activity.
“One of the keys things is that because we deployed it so quickly it took a lot of the pressure of us, in order to be able to then carry on focusing on other technologies.”
After taking us through his roll-out of remote working capabilities, David also highlighted how “the pandemic itself spawned a series of cyber threats” with people aiming to take advantage of low staffing numbers and distractions.
Even working with other healthcare providers required a re-think. As the CDIO told us: “We as a hospital had to remain COVID-free in effect, so that we could continue providing cancer treatment. What we did is we partnered with a private hospital, the Bupa [operated] Cromwell in London, to provide additional surgical capacity, as well as beds.
“One of the key challenges that staff had going over to the Cromwell, was access to the Royal Marsden’s own internal systems.
“Because we got the VDI solution, it meant that we were able to put trust staff into, in effect, a foreign hospital. And by just using the VDI client they were able to access all the trust’s clinical systems securely.”
As well as focusing on the initial response, David shared his team’s experiences of adapting areas such as clinical trials and training to the digital domain.
A particularly interesting area of innovation mentioned was the “virtualised remote trial monitoring solution”. This meant the trust could allow clinical trials to continue. It included giving access to external users and applying restrictions to the data seen, as well as allowing for remote supervision.
Speaking overall about tackling COVID-19 digitally at Marsden, David said: “In terms of digital, we have probably never seen quite as much demand as we have in the past 12 months, in terms of new ways working.
“I’m pleased to say that, despite the COVID crisis, the Marsden has managed largely its workload with regards to cancer treatment. Which is obviously great news for all cancer patients, which is what it’s all about.”
Find the full story of David’s experiences at the Royal Marsden in the video below:
