University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust board has shared its Quality Account for 2024/25, highlighting uses of digital and data to support quality across the trust’s services. It also sets out priorities for the coming year across improving experiences of care and staff experience, and reducing harms.
On successes, the trust shares a number of key projects and initiatives, including digital pathology go-live which has “increased capability to diagnose cancer quickly”, and the completion of “numerous” long-term projects in imaging and diagnostics. One of these is in interventional radiology, where e-requesting for procedures has been implemented to move away from paper forms, with UHP observing increased efficiency, reduced delays, and better data to inform future service improvement projects.
Its Hospital Passports app – created to support people with a learning disability to be able to tell hospital staff what their needs are – remains a key focus, the trust states, with improvements in staff awareness and training meaning patients are being asked for their hospital passport more regularly. There are now plans to roll this out to other hospitals in the South West, along with ongoing efforts to promote the app and its services to support individuals with learning disabilities.
UHP has also reportedly led on the rollout of electronic treatment escalation plans (eTEP) across Plymouth and Devon, ensuring visibility across care settings. At present, the eTEP is housed in the Devon and Cornwall Care Record, and will be a “key link” with the One Devon EPR when established in 2026. The trust reports that it has completed 13,500 TEP forms, and had 35,800 views, “with consistent week by week completion (250-300) and viewing (800-1000) occurring at the trust demonstrating the need for a digital solution”. In community, the trust points to “strong partnership links” with community teams and St Luke’s Hospice, aided by shared access to digital records via SystmOne.
Elsewhere, for cancer, UHP states that despite “significant year-on-year increases in suspected cancer demand”, it continues to perform well against the national standard for timely diagnosis of 77 percent, with 81.2 percent of patients receiving diagnosis within 28 days of referral in 2024/25. It identifies further work required on achieving the ambition of treating over 70 percent of patients within 62 days, placing current figures at 66.5 percent for the same period. With support from the Peninsula Cancer Alliance, the trust plans to reach 75 percent of patients receiving their treatment within 62 days of referral by the end of 2025/26, adding: “The trust is speaking to centres across the UK to seek out best practice example pathways and is exploring digital and AI solutions to complement our plans.”
The trust also shares that it is currently leading a project funded by the Medical Research Council, which uses AI tools to analyse brain scans and test results to predict the likelihood of recurrent strokes in patients. It also briefly shares focuses for 2025/26 around digital first, digital inclusion, and the use of digital to support R&D functions.
Digital and data from across the NHS
For HTN Now, we welcomed a group of experts for a discussion on how digital tools are transforming community care delivery and expanding workforce capacity. Panellists included Peter Cumpstone, head of digital clinical systems, safety and transformation at Sirona care & health; Sara Lowe, CHS business and transformation clinical team lead at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust; and Gabi Cohen, director of delivery at Isla Health. Our panel shared real-world projects, including waitlist validation pathways, self-managed care models, and community-based digital practices. They also highlighted practical insights into how technology is being used to streamline workflows, reduce pressure on staff, and improve patient outcomes.
Lincolnshire’s Health and Care Digital Inclusion Strategy was presented to the ICB for approval, outlining priorities for 2025 – 2028 covering access to devices and data, accessibility and ease of using tech, access to services, skills and capability, beliefs and trust, and leadership and partnerships. It shares results from the Lincolnshire Digital Health Toolkit, created to identify areas at “the greatest risk of being left behind as a result of digitalisation”, making links between the more deprived areas of Lincolnshire and higher rates of digital exclusion.
NHS England’s board met last week, offering updates on key performance metrics, and to discuss the NHS App, the future operating model for NHSE’s digital priorities, and to maximise EPRs following implementation. The board also discussed considerations for winter planning and preparedness, following on from a request in the UEC Delivery Plan for ICBs and trusts to develop system winter plans to be “stress-tested” in September.
The latest instalment of our ICS region series looks to London, exploring ICS digital strategies and updates, priorities, insights, and snapshots from the past year.
