Isle of Wight NHS Trust (IWT) and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust (PHU) have published their latest Digital Strategy, setting out a roadmap to 2031, with year one focuses including OneEPR design, infrastructure design and virtual hospital; before moving into AI integration, EPR optimisation, data platform deployment, AI-driven pathways, and “smart” hospital operations.
By 2030, the trusts hope to have 80 percent of patients using the patient portal, to have reduced medication errors by 50 percent with EPR, to release 100,000 hours per year in time saved through automation, to reduce outpatient DNAs by 30 percent, and to have reduced admission for long-term conditions by 15 percent.
To date, IWT and PHU have secured approval and begun preparations for a joint EPR under the OneEPR programme, consolidating reporting functions, aligning with the ICS Shared Care Record, and building the foundations for a federated data platform. AI voice recognition and automation have been piloted in targeted areas, and the trusts have digitised key workflows with extended digital dictation, e-prescribing, and single sign-on. Applications are being rationalised, and platforms are being aligned across both sites to help reduce duplication and variation, and a series of digital readiness programmes have been introduced to develop workforce digital skills.
The trusts have also seen progress around virtual care, scaling remote monitoring and virtual wards, rolling out virtual consultations, and developing the patient portal, as well as embedding governance and risk management processes for digital clinical safety. A Group Operating Model has established a joint structure and a platform for digital convergence and shared working, with a Joint Digital Team launched to bring together expertise, best practice, and resources from both IWT and PHU.
Under the new strategy, the trusts share details of the future patient journey, featuring the NHS App as the digital front door, virtual consultations to add convenience, seamless data sharing to reduce duplication and improve safety, OneEPR to give staff access to the right information at the right time, and remote monitoring to support early discharge and proactive care.
Whilst a patient portal and virtual consultation platforms are already in place, uptake and awareness remains “inconsistent” according to IWT and PHU, and digital services are “not yet fully integrated” into OneEPR. Success, the trusts go on, will look to the embedding of digital tools such as remote monitoring and digital messaging into care pathways, co-designing digital services, accessible platforms, targeted digital education and community outreach to build engagement with digital health tools.
For ambulance services, the trusts highlight plans to introduce AI-enabled clinical triage and decision support tools to uphold intelligence-driven care. AI tools will support call handlers and paramedics by analysing symptoms and patterns, improving patient outcomes, and virtual care models will allow system partners to refer into virtual pathways without the need for admission.
Looking to improving and sharing information, IWT and PHU commit to developing a data platform bringing together information from both trusts and the wider ICS, with the aim of creating a “single, trusted view” of data, informing strategic planning, and unlocking the potential of AI-driven insights in shaping more personalised services. Investment in automation, AI, and advanced analytics will support population health management and service redesign, and the trusts’ data and analytics teams will continue to work on maximising the value of data assets and delivering “actionable intelligence” for decision-making.
Early pilots of AI-assisted voice recognition and robotic process automation have “demonstrated measurable benefits in efficiency and accuracy”, the trusts report, with opportunities to be explored around introducing an innovation pipeline to encourage faster testing and scaling of digital solutions, partnerships with industry and research, the embedding of AI in clinical pathways, and the use of automation in admin to release time for frontline care. “We have an innovation process that allows rapid prototyping of ward-level improvement initiatives that meet the test of increasing productivity or improving quality and safety,” the trusts share.
More than 300,000 transactions have been automated at PHU, with the trust estimating that “thousands of staff hours” are being saved annually, through task such as the automatic updating of patient demographic information, and the processing of clinic outcome forms. The trust has an aspiration to become a Centre of Excellence for Automation, it states, with automation now to be expanded across HR, finance, and clinical administration.
Other ambitions set out in the strategy cover investing in cyber awareness training and advanced threat detection tools, ensuring the ambulance service has the resilient infrastructure required to adopt next-generation communications platforms, promoting digital inclusion, and developing a culture of engagement, “where digital transformation is something we do with people, not to them”.
Wider trend: Digital strategy
Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals NHS Group, made up of United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals and Lincolnshire Community Health Services trusts, has published a new digital strategy to 2028, noting the need to go further faster, leverage increased scale, and larger and “more ambitious” research and innovation. It reflects on its best of breed technology approach, noting challenges with integration and duplication, highlighting the intention to reduce the number of systems in use by 50 percent going forward.
South West Yorkshire Partnership Teaching NHS Foundation Trust’s six-month digital strategy update has shared insights on progress and plans across ambient AI, digital care records, digital information sharing, infrastructure modernisation, EPR reprocurement and more. Looking ahead to 2026/27, key focuses include the Federated Data Platform, enabling faster data flows and improved data quality, EPMA and EPS, a cyber security development programme, and a digital infrastructure modernisation programme. EPR reprocurement and reprovisioning activities are also set to begin in 2026.
Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust’s latest digital strategy and new AI framework have set out objectives, principles, and guidelines on the implementation of technology across the trust and the future use of AI. Priority areas of focus for the next five years include electronic prescribing in community, exploring patient portal options, employing ambient voice technology, focusing on data-driven care, and pursuing EPR developments. Setting out an ideal patient journey in 2030, CWP looks to use voice technology, digital appointment management, options for direct communication with GPs, electronic prescriptions “straight from health record to pharmacy”, and shared care records to reduce duplication.
