Cheshire and Wirral Partnership’s latest green plan, highlighted in the trust’s July board meeting, has focused on digital progress and upcoming priorities including cyber security, digital inclusion, virtual pathways and cloud.
Progress to date has included a contract with Restore Technology around waste from electrical and electronic equipment, where the trust receive recompense for every item disposed of at the end of the financial year. A departmental workshop, established in 2024, also offers an internal “sustainable solution” for repairing IT equipment, aiming to reduce costs associated with procuring new equipment and reliance on external contractors, the trust notes.
Staff are being engaged through digital care channels, the trust states, with EMIS available on laptops with a sim card to ensure that community staff can access information they need remotely. IT equipment and systems to support a flexible working policy have also been provided, it continues, enabling staff to work remotely and supporting video conferencing and virtual meetings.
Looking ahead, Cheshire and Wirral Partnership commits to continuing to utilise the benefits of digital to reduce emissions and improve patient care, using virtual pathways “where appropriate”, considering opportunities to embed sustainability in digital services informed by the Digital Maturity Assessment, and trialling and deploying a power-down software to automatically turn off computer hardware when idle.
Robust cyber security systems will be installed to ensure that staff can be supported to work remotely whilst protecting sensitive data. Data hosting in energy efficient or cloud-based data centres will be prioritised, and the trust will continue to utilise a “holistic circular device strategy” looking to reuse devices, support digital inclusion, and minimise waste. Digital infrastructure and telecoms will be assessed for their consideration of future climate change projections.
Future plans and strategies from across the NHS
South West London ICB’s latest Cyber Security Strategy has set out six objectives to be achieved by 2030: strengthening governance, managing risk, understanding critical systems and suppliers, prevention and resilience, detecting and responding to threats and incidents, and embedding cyber awareness and culture. Informed by cyber assessments of NHS provider organisations and lessons learned from recent NHS cyber incidents, along with “key takeaways” from the ICB’s system-wide cyber incident simulation exercise, the strategy is designed to align with the revised Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) and national guidelines.
The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust has shared its Digital, Data and Technology strategy to 2029, building on a “good platform for digital growth and a set of capable and effective tools” resulting from the successful delivery of its previous strategy. The trust’s roadmap for 2025/26 looks to focus on an AI framework, ambient AI pilot, digital standards and training plan, low code automation first of type, cyber awareness campaign, and administrative AI use cases. For 2026/27, the focus is NHS App integration, FDP compliance, HIMSS 7, Internet of Things capability, and integrated discovery and diagnostics.
East London NHS Foundation Trust has published a strategy impact report to 2025, reflecting on key achievements and progress as its former 2021 strategy comes to an end. The trust also shares that a new strategy will be developed over the summer, encouraging stakeholders to engage with this process and have their say in shaping upcoming plans and objectives. ELFT highlights its work in making its services “more reliable and resilient”, including in moving all clinical systems to the cloud, and in investments toward the transformation of IT infrastructure to improve network and Wi-Fi access.
