Ashford and St. Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has marked progress and ambitions around AI, EPR, robotics, and digital innovation in its latest trust strategy to 2031.
The trust reports having made “significant advancements” in the use of digital technologies to improve patient care, highlighting its EPR roll out, and the roll out of robotic surgery in areas including colorectal, gynaecology, upper gastrointestinal, and general surgery.
The use of AI triage and clinical prioritisation in areas such as dermatology and imaging is improving access for patients and freeing-up clinician time to focus on cases requiring further investigation, it shares. An AI steering group with Royal Surrey is also reportedly supporting collaboration around technological innovation and the use of AI in digital services.
On identifying challenges, the trust notes its EPR is not yet fully optimised, which it reports is “limiting the potential of our digital capabilities and other system interfaces”. ASPH highlights the need for investment and training in cyber, and the impact from its ability to implement digital solutions in an agile way.
In a PESTLE analysis, ASPH observes: “Technological advances present one of the most significant enablers for the trust’s future strategy, though current digital maturity – particularly incomplete electronic patient record optimisation – remains a constraint. Scaling innovations such as robotics, AI, remote monitoring and virtual wards aligns well with national priorities and offers opportunities to improve efficiency, outcomes and demand management.”
Looking ahead, the trust sets out priorities to reduce unwarranted clinical variation, work collaboratively to build a “listening and learning” organisation, and utilise research, innovation, and digital tech to improve access to both elective and emergency care. Digital systems will help support timely patient flow and reduce waiting times, it states, and the expansion of tech-enabled care is hoped to improve patient recovery time and outcomes.
By working with partners, the trust intends to identify high-risk patients who might require additional support, such as those living with frailty or those transitioning from child to adult services. Partner-provider intelligence will help highlight inequalities in access, and public health data and intelligence will grant the ability to clinically prioritise groups of patients based on need.
All staff will be given access to digital training, according to ASPH, and there will be a focus on using AI and other tech to free-up clinician administration time for direct patient care. Resilient infrastructure and cyber security will offer the technical foundations for digital operations, it continues, and more use will be made of the MyCare patient portal and NHS App to empower patients with monitoring and managing their own health.
A group transformation programme with Royal Surrey further highlights efforts to improve access via AI-supported administration and patient-led booking, to improve patient flow with digitally-enabled bed management, to expand hospital at home services, and to use population health data to tailor services to local need.
Wider trend: The role of digital in future care
Mid and South Essex ICB’s annual report has highlighted uses of digital across the system, including the expansion of the shared care record, progress on the unified EPR programme, and the use of digital tools to support integrated neighbourhood teams. On the shift from analogue to digital, MSE chair Michael Thorne reports that continued progress on the shared care record and wider digital infrastructure has improved the availability and consistency of information across organisational boundaries. He continues: “Alongside this, the development of system-wide analytics through platforms such as Athena has begun to provide a more coherent basis for clinical and operational decision-making. These are not, perhaps, developments that are immediately visible to patients, but they are foundational to a more integrated and effective service.”
NHS Midlands has completed an at-scale procurement of Heidi’s ambient voice technology solution to cover all 1,239 GP practices and 15 acute and community trusts in the region. The region-wide procurement, led by The Dudley Group and Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals, will support all GPs to access the technology without needing to undertake a separate local process. Heidi, the selected supplier, is one of 23 suppliers listed on NHSE’s self-certified AVT registry, which was first published back in January.
Humber and North Yorkshire Collaboration of Acute Providers annual report for 2025/26 has discussed next steps and the future of acute care in the region. Next steps for digital include an order comms pilot at York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals in September 2026, implementation of shared reporting and scheduling at the Humber Health Partnership also in September 2026, and the roll out of iRefer across Humber and North Yorkshire from March 2027. For 2026/27, the focus will be on implementing core imaging digital storage and sharing solutions such as RIS, picture archiving and communication systems, and the national imaging registry. Infrastructure to support these solutions will also be implemented, including increased bandwidth and cloud storage capability. AI and other digital solutions for improving productivity will be explored, such as MRI acceleration software, AI scheduling and booking solutions, and AI to support cancer FDS in dermatology, chest x-ray, and prostate patients.
