York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust board of directors have highlighted its Nervecentre EPR programme and future digital plans for 2026 onwards.
Go-live of the first tranche of the EPR programme covers observations, clinical documentation for inpatients, urgent and emergency care, ePMA, bed management, and read-only diagnostic results, and is expected to take place at the end of Q1 2026. User acceptance testing is underway with members of the clinical digital team, with plans to expand this to more users from November onwards. The go-live of the second tranche for order comms is expected on 30 June 2026, with the third to follow on 30 October 2026, covering patient administration system, outpatient documentation, theatres, endoscopy, and eConsent.
The board discuss an update on how the trust is working to promote cultural change to support successful implementation, with the board stating that collaboration is ongoing between the digital team and clinical teams, designing processes to be consistent across different sites. A team of clinicians has been seconded to the project, to act as EPR champions and advise on the implementation, whilst communications are focused on increasing general awareness across the trust.
The board also touched upon digital interface work, noting that the digital team was working with both the chief pharmacist and the Ophthalmology department on the ePMA module and the Medisight system, and sharing that an integration engine has been procured to support more effective digital interfacing.
Next steps include completing the software build for the first tranche, with cutover planning to be finalised, including transcribing plans, and a focus on achieving a safe go-live. EPR design and readiness work continues on the remaining tranches. The board also noted the opportunities for the use of AI for a number of clinical areas, with the digital team needing to “have capacity to respond to developments which would increase productivity”.
The board moves on to raise concerns about the trust’s ability to continue the designing, building, and testing activities required across all of the EPR tranches and to provide “appropriate resources and input” to ensure it maximises the opportunity to transform ways of working. Also considered are the impact of the EPR delivery on business as usual activity in digital, and the risk of staff availability for training impacting the ability to go live in line with planned dates.
Other updates on digital offered by the board cover a “multi-year programme” of paper records scanning and storage consolidation, and a Windows 11 migration which is reportedly “nearly complete”. AI trials of Microsoft Copilot are to be completed with a focus on opportunities to increase efficiency, and the trust is planning to optimise the use of the new pathology laboratory information systems.
The trust also shares findings from the latest Data Security and Protection Toolkit 2025 audit, which highlight “known gaps that require multi-year investment and remediation”. A business case is to be built for a data warehousing solution upgrade, and a patient portal strategy is to be considered, including options appraisal. Developing a plan for “greater alignment” of departmental IT systems and supporting the rollout of electronic ordering of image diagnostics to primary care are also focuses for the coming year and beyond.
Wider trend: EPR implementation and optimisation
For a recent HTN Now session on the topic of EPRs now and in the future, we were joined by digital leaders including Sally Mole, senior digital programme manager – digital portfolio delivery team at The Dudley Group; Keltie Jamieson, CHIO at Bermuda Hospitals Board; and David Newey, digital health expert and executive CDIO. We heard in depth from our panel in terms of their EPR journey, sharing their approach, examples, challenges and lessons learned. We went on to discuss the current position with EPRs, the opportunity, and the current need. Looking ahead, we discussed what the future of EPRs looks like in the short, medium and longer term.
A memorandum of understanding for a joint EPR programme has been prepared by Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, outlining the joint approach to procurement, governance, resourcing, and decision-making. The intention to jointly procure an EPR was shared in June, with the organisations noting the steps they are taking ahead of when current contracts end in 2028. A joint digital programme board is leading the work to make sure it meets the needs of both organisations, with the trusts also focusing on sustainability and to be proactive in its services for the future.
The East Cheshire NHS Trust board has noted a “smoother than anticipated go-live” of its MEDITECH EPR in June of this year, noting learnings to share with other trusts, the impacts across the hospitals and the next phase of the programme. The joint go-live with Mid Cheshire NHS Foundation Trust introduced phase one functionality including emergency department, patient administration system, theatres, inpatient and outpatient clinical documentation, and radiology requesting. Inpatient electronic prescribing and medicines administration followed shortly after.
Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust’s board has shared plans to update the forecasted net financial benefit of its Hive EPR from £340 million as listed at the business case stage, to £390 million. Alongside this increase, the trust highlights a series of planned EPR improvements and integrations, as well as upcoming work with NHS England as part of a review of productivity increases following EPR adoption.
