The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust has shared updates on its digital and innovation work, outlining use cases of AI, ambient voice technology, and robotic process automation.
On innovation the trust is utilising AI in developing models for predicting non-attendance and length of stay, with a dynamic dashboard also developed to report on survival, toxicity, and 30-day mortality. AVT is being piloted by the trust’s digital team, and The Clatterbridge has committed to getting involved in a regional pilot. Its innovation team has also reported to have generated more than £160,000 in income through a range of projects and consultancy work over the last year.
The trust similarly highlights current RPA use cases, which cover the automation of processes such as medicines stock control, and use in supporting diagnostic procedure coding. Microsoft Power Automate is being onboarded, it continues, to “enable faster and more integrated RPA development for future processes, streamlining operational workflows”.
A patient portal has gone live that allows data to flow into Meditech from Patients Know Best, supporting remote monitoring. CoPilot has also been rolled out to staff, with The Clatterbridge noting “early signs of wider productivity benefits”. Elsewhere, the trust reports on a pharmacy stock control system set to save around 30 hours per week, automated dispensing cabinets supporting automated controlled drugs records, and the Personal Demographic Service which supports patient verification and improved data sharing across NHS systems.
In terms of data-driven cancer research and innovation, data from Macmillan is now being flowed into the trust’s data warehouse to be incorporated into monthly cancer outcomes and services data feeds, and Federated Data Platform Cancer 360 is now live to help consolidate patient data from multiple systems into a single dashboard.
The trust is also continuing to work collaboratively with regional partners across the Cheshire and Merseyside Provider Collaborative, Liverpool Adult Acute Specialist Providers, and Merseycare and Alder Hey for neighbourhood provision. “We are working to develop a Target Operating Model for a single digital service across Liverpool,” it shares. “This will include the integration of teams and digital systems across Liverpool. We are committed to delivering a single EPR across Liverpool to support patient flow and clinical pathways across all five organisations.”
A digital clinical safety culture is being promoted with the placement of a team of clinical safety officers, the trust states, who have been trained to a national standard and now sit across clinical digital teams. Staff are also being supported to make the most of the Meditech EPR by the clinical systems training team, with alignment to each clinical unit and regular check-ins.
Wider trend: Digital transformation and innovation across NHS trusts
London Ambulance Service NHS Trust has shared outcomes from AI pilots including ambient voice and AI training simulation for staff, along with future ambitions for digital and data, and planned collaborations with the Southern Ambulance Services Collaboration on shared infrastructure, cyber security, and more. A one-year pilot of Tortus AI ambient voice technology is underway across LAS’s clinical hub and ambulance operations, following a successful proof of concept trial funded by the Frontline Digitisation Fund. Another proof of concept is being conducted with Kaiwa’s AI training platform, an AI-powered conversational simulation tool to enhance emergency call taker training.
Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has outlined progress to date on the trust’s digital strategy, and priorities for 2026 including a collaborative EPR procurement, EPR readiness, AI, and automation. The trust’s wider focus is shifting to designing “at scale” digital and data architecture, platforms, tools, and services such as shared care records and a neighbourhood health platform, in order to meet the requirements outlined in the NHS Medium Term Planning Framework. High priority use cases for shared care record rollout will be identified, the federated data platform will be used to deliver further “at scale” tools and services to support population health management, and Agentic AI will be piloted in elective care to automate waiting list management.
Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust has shared updates on its Frontline Digitisation programme, including key work on patient records, EMIS rollout, and EPMA. The rollout of EPMA is underway, with implementation in mental health inpatient wards to be followed by outpatients and community inpatients. A programme of system interoperability via the trust’s integration engine and shared care records is planned to ensure the right data is available to clinical teams, and network improvements, devices, and infrastructure are all listed as “critical enablers” to delivery. Oxford Health also looks to achieve level four digital maturity on the What Good Looks Like framework, and to finish delivering its current digital strategy which is due to be refreshed in 2026.
