Bristol NHS Group, a partnership between North Bristol and University Hospitals Bristol and Weston, has published a Group Clinical Strategy update, focusing on delivering joined-up clinical services, reframing how services are delivered, and reimagining the future of care.
The first priority for single leadership teams within group clinical services is setting out a clear picture of what challenges they face across digital, workforce, finance, and estates, the group notes, and enabling strategies such as for digital services, are in development to offer the foundation for long-term progress.
“We continue to develop our group clinical services, bringing duplicated services together under a single leadership team, with shared planning and aligned patient pathways,” the group states. “Lessons learned from our first group clinical services mean we can accelerate the programme and make significant progress across all 40 by March 2027.”
Plans include shifting care toward prevention and early intervention, making services more accessible, and expanding remote and digitally-enabled care. Routine face-to-face outpatient appointments will be reduced, and follow-up appointments will be delivered remotely.
“We are keen to share the work of some of our clinical teams in Cardiology, Rheumatology, Dermatology and Pain, who have provided ways for patients to interact with their service remotely, on demand or in group settings,” the group notes. “We are asking leadership teams in clinical services to explore every opportunity to provide outpatient and diagnostic services remotely, using technology and out of hospital settings.”
Technology and innovation will continue to support the shift to community, according to the trusts, with care pathways redesigned to start and end in patients’ homes or the community, and infrastructure modernised across community-based sites. A data-led approach is also outlined to help keep the local population healthy.
Further to this update, the group shares that a new “forward-thinking” clinical strategy is expected to be delivered for 2027 – 2032, with a unified plan to be developed to help design care across one merged trust, and hopes for this merge to remove barriers in finance, estates, digital, and operations.
Tim Whittlestone, chief medical and innovation officer at Bristol NHS Group, pointed to the update as an opportunity to think differently about how care is delivered, saying: “Our teams are already showing the power of working as one, and this update sets out how we can go further – bringing care closer to home, focusing on prevention and using digital tools to support modern, accessible services. Thank you to everyone who is helping us create a better future for our patients and communities.”
Wider trend: Digitally-enabled care
Moorfields spin-out Cascader has announced its partnership with Specsavers focused on harnessing the potential of AI innovation to improve patient care in optometry. Cascader, a spin-out from Moorfields, UCL and Topcon Health, is focused on building clinical-grade AI for ophthalmology. A mission statement from its website outlines its work to use AI “to enable safe, evidence-based decisions in high-volume, high-risk eye conditions” and to use oculomics for early detection of systemic disease.
Strategic milestones to 2030 for data, AI, EPR, and remote care at Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust have set the trajectory for the trust’s digital journey over the next four years. Focuses include moving care closer to home, embracing digital transformation and data-driven decisions, promoting staff digital literacy, upgrading digital systems and smart technologies, optimising EPR, and embedding research and innovation. On modernising infrastructure, the trust sets goals of having a range of clinical and operational dashboards in place, enhancing the MyFrimleyHealth app for inpatients, completing its modernisation of digital infrastructure and Windows 11, and achieving HIMSS level 6 by 2026/27.
In its latest meeting, the board of Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust discussed “significant progress” made over the last two months in progressing the trust’s digital agenda, highlighting new digital roles, EPR procurement, planned rollout of ambient voice, and a “major investment” in clinical system integration. Procurement has begun for a new acute and community EPR, according to the board, with decisions moving forward to be shaped by staff input. A major investment in clinical system integration with system partners is underway, with the trust’s virtual ward to be integrated with Oracle CRS and TPP SystmOne to promote data flows and improve joined-up care.
