South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust and George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust boards have discussed its shared EPR programme, noting a go live of October 2026, the need to progress at pace, and highlighting the potential costs if the programme delays.
“The programme has very limited contingency time, and delays to the programme timescale are estimated at a cost of £1 million per month,” the boards highlight.
EPR localisation sessions are underway to review the current EPR system and workflows with a view to assessing impact on trust processes, as well as potential clinical and operational risks. A mitigation plan has also been agreed, with Oracle Health and Innovate leads reviewing workflows, and a localisation tracker being shared with UHCW to identify areas requiring their input.
Future state validation sessions set to take place from December 2025 will start to identify transformation and adoption challenges from the localisation phase, along with their potential impact on productivity. The trusts also report ongoing discussions around the possibility of NHS Tiger Teams being used to help mitigate programme risks, particularly across workstreams such as transformation, data migrations, and reporting.
On a technical level, the boards note that “circuits providing connectivity to the Oracle Health domain have not been installed in time for localisation activity”, with a VPN implemented as a mitigation. “Installation of the full network connectivity circuits has been further delayed due to a cyber-attack at one of the key suppliers (not Oracle Health),” they add. “An assessment of this issue is underway to understand the impact on programme activities such as Future State Validation and Testing. The RAG rating remains Green while this assessment is undertaken but may change to Amber depending on the outcome in the next reporting period.”
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 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.
