East Cheshire NHS Trust has outlined five aims for 2026 and beyond following the “smoother than anticipated” go-live of its Meditech EPR in June of last year.
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 (EPMA) followed shortly after.
The trust shares five focuses ahead of the one-year anniversary of implementation, including a major upgrade addressing “a number of the known improvement opportunities” with the system, scheduled for 21 March.
By the end of June 2026, East Cheshire plans to complete the further digitisation of paper documentation across its inpatients, outpatients, and ED departments. “The focus is on high priority documents,” it states, “a top 50 have been agreed for delivery for June 2026 with available resources.”
Work is also underway to optimise existing live referrals and extend the rollout of internal referral orders for other specialties, the trust notes, with a focus again on high priority referrals that can be delivered by June 2026. The pilot of results notifications for orthopaedics and gastroenterology is also to be delivered for June.
Other projects will continue beyond 2026, including further rollout of order comms to include full integration of pathology results and requests. EPMA functionality is also to be extended to include high priority drug charts and IV fluids.
Elsewhere, the trust’s board offers an update on progress around the Cheshire and Merseyside Provider Collaborative, with plans to establish a Digital Centre of Excellence, to develop shared architecture, and to incorporate ICB digital functions into a shared collaborative model.
For Q4 of 2025/26, oversight will be strengthened in relation to the safety of medical devices connected to the trust’s IT systems, and it plans to continue to implement information security risk reviews of digital systems, according to the board.
Wider trend: EPR implementation and optimisation
The board of Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust (HDFT) offered an update on the trust’s EPR implementation following the go-live of tranche one functionality in November 2025, along with plans to continue to improve digital maturity scores and a roadmap to 2028. “EPR is live and continues to be rolled out with positive signs,” the board notes. “First tranche of EPR had launched on Wednesday 19 November and the launch had gone very well with the level of engagement well received. The next target was to view results with April as the date for clinical noting.” Praise is shared for the team on delivering a successful launch, and for the decision to adopt a modular approach.
Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust’s board has discussed its EPR programme amidst reported delays to phase two and outstanding work on future state validation, with a revised timeline for the action given as June 2026. “The NOVA programme is progressing, but new risks – linked to system integration and programme complexity – are likely to delay the EPR go-live date,” the trust states. “Oracle Health has confirmed no additional costs, though extra resourcing will be needed and is being reviewed with finance.”
For our EPR feature series, we took a deep dive and reflected on some of the progress made around EPRs over the last 12 months, focusing-in on implementations, on optimisation and benefits realisation, on future plans, and on insights from the wider health and care sector.
