From Black Country ICB, we heard insight into the Black Country Connected Programme, designed to “support and enable our population to embrace digital as a means of support.” The programme “supports people to get online by loaning laptops to people with no current access to a computer, helping them learn IT skills and build confidence to access health and wellbeing services and information online, including virtual GP appointments, the NHS App, search/apply for jobs and keep in touch with relatives via phone or video calls.” Recipients are invited to an ad-hoc hub day to collect their device and given one-to-one assistance, with a baseline survey completed upon collection of device and after three months helping with evaluation.

Among survey results from June 2023 and December 2023, Black County ICB found that searches for health information online rose from 25 percent to 42 percent; 47 percent of participants accessed the NHS App regularly in December, as opposed to the previous figure of 33 percent; confidence in ordering repeat prescriptions online has “more than doubled”; and recipients’ confidence in accessing healthcare online has increased by more than 50 percent. Additionally, of those who responded, over 95 percent of participants reportedly stated at the three month stage that they felt more confident using digital devices after taking part in the programme.

Over the next 12 months, Black Country ICB will be looking to “assess our position – the care system is evolving and digital has the potential to lead that change. In the past digital has been seen as an enabler for traditional care processes. We are changing that perception in the Black Country so that digital is seen as a catalyst for change. Care processes need to evolve to keep up with the technological advancements and sophisticated use of data.”

Additionally, the ICB acknowledges rapid growth around emerging technologies such as AI. “Recognising that AI will become an increasingly important innovation in helping to achieve the strategies and objectives of the Health and Social care system, the Black Country ICS Digital programme has established an AI working group that involves members from partner organisations and a range of professions including clinical, digital, operational, governance and intelligence/analytics.”

Dr Penny Kechagioglou, chief clinical information officer and deputy chief medical officer at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire, also provided insights.

“Our main digital priority is the implementation of our integrated EPR system across the three acute trusts in our ICS, starting from UHCW which is going live on 15 June. This includes our citizen portal for engagement, appointment bookings and viewing results and correspondence. Through the implementation of a single EPR incidence, we are looking to enhance our system datasets to be able to embed a population health management approach to health and care,” she said.

What is Penny proud of, with regards to recent digital work within her region? “UHCW has been recognised as a centre of excellence for process mining by NHS England as a result of the collaborative work to improve outpatient flow and citizen engagement, between our trust, IBM and Celonis. We have managed to transform the way we engage with citizens within eight weeks, reducing outpatient DNA rates from 10 percent to 4 percent, bringing waiting lists down, improving patient experience and staff satisfaction. We have managed to sustain this positive impact over the last few months and spread this innovative approach to other trusts,” she highlighted.

Looking to the future, Penny said: “We envisage that over the next 12 months, we will be scaling process mining and genAI to create intelligent workflows, improving productivity and the experience of our staff and patients. Our patient engagement portal will make a positive impact in terms of patient-clinician interaction and our EPR system will enable us to  build the first two data-driven integrated clinical pathways.”

Jane Scarborough, public facing digital services programme and change management lead for Digital Notts shared her thoughts on recent and upcoming digital health work in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

“Throughout 2023/24 we have worked hard to increase the utilisation of Patient Engagement Portals, integrated into the NHS App, and one highlight has been the introduction of digital appointments and digital appointment letters for patients to view within their NHS App. For patients, this offers an improved service and more convenient way of accessing appointment information. Early evidence also shows that receiving appointments digitally reduces the number of Did Not Attends (DNAs),” she said. “The introduction of digital outpatient letters has also had a significant impact on both cost savings (reduced postage, printing and paper costs) and carbon savings.  Over the past 12 months, one hospital trust has saved over four tonnes of carbon, which could be scaled quite easily by expanding the use and raising awareness of the availability of digital letters with patients.”

On the recent update to their digital strategy, Jane said: “There is a significant pipeline of digital programmes of work across the ICS, including in primary care, secondary care and working with community providers too.

“The major digital priority and biggest digital investment for 2024/25 across all our trusts is the procurement and implementation of EPRs. A significant amount of planning and business engagement is already underway, to ensure organisational readiness once implementation is ready to start. Staff engagement and development of digital skills is a key component towards organisational readiness.” Jane also discussed the core priority of delivering a shared care record for use across all system partners, adding that they are working towards full implementation by the end of this year.

“Within primary care, our digital focus is supporting the principles of modern general practice; giving patients the choice on how to contact their practice. Digital priorities for this year include continuing improvements in telephony, enabling online services via highly usable and accessible websites and online consultation tools, encouraging patient utilisation of the NHS App. As part of our digital services, we will also be supporting practices to give their patients access to their records.”

Jane continued: “We also have a strong Public Facing Digital Services programme of work and priorities here will focus on driving up patient use of the NHS App, whilst ensuring we maximise the benefits to patients of having the NHS App. For 2024-25 our priorities include extending the use of the integrated Patient Engagement Portal and Patient Held Record, both integrated into the NHS App. We are actively working on ‘Emeet & Greet’ to include a digital patient referral welcome and digitise the pre- and post-op patient engagement journey.

“Finally, the use of data is a continuing priority across our ICS, to support intelligent decision making and enable the system to focus and tailor resources where they will have most impact. Designing interventions that help to prevent ill health and support a reduction in Health Inequalities across the system.”

From University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, chief information officer Will Monaghan shared: “The main focus for UHDB is the transition to a single Electronic Patient Record (EPRs), following NHSE approval in April 2024, work has commenced to replace our two existing EPRs with Nervecentre. Over the next two years we will be working at pace to ensure that all our current systems and processes are upgraded and optimised ready for the full implementation of the EPR. As part of this we will be working on a number of programmes including paperlite, the shared care records for both Derbyshire and Staffordshire, increased development and deployment of automation and the removal of obsolete systems and servers.

Will raised the implementation of single sign-on technology as a project he is particularly proud of, noting that it has allowed approximately 12,000 users to “sign into all of the systems they use on a daily basis, with a simple tap of their smart card, making it simple, easy and more efficient for our clinical colleagues to access, update and record patient notes. Working closely with our clinical teams the project has been successfully completed within the last 12 months, at a time when clinical colleagues have experienced some of the biggest challenges faced in the NHS, however through the use of digital technology we have been able to support them by taking away the need to remember and input multiple logins, freeing up more time to provide outstanding care for our patients.”

What does the future hold? Will shared his thoughts, focusing in on UHDB’s experiences: “We are pleased to be part of the federated data platform development, successfully delivering two elements of this in 2023/24, the Care Coordination Solution and OPTICA, enabling patients to receive surgery quicker and supporting timely discharge respectively.”

Additionally, he said, Badgernet will be launched in June this year to support maternity colleagues, and work to enhance the patient experience portal is is a “top priority in 2024”.

He added: “Working with colleagues across Derbyshire and Staffordshire the focus on the single EPR will increase our focus on eliminating paper case notes across UHDB, the first stage in this process is the continued roll out of our paperlite programme, aiming to reduce the use of paper and move to digital notes for patient care. Both Badgernet and Nervecentre will place patient records in the hands of clinicians without the need for paper, not only does this reduce administration time, it will also support the net zero ambitions of the trust and NHSE.

“Finally, the  use of automation in the trust to support both clinical and administrative functions will be one of the main focusses of our data science teams, providing a real opportunity to provide cash releasing benefits that can be redirected to patient care, reducing waste and improving patient care through efficiencies in time and processes. The ambition for UHDB over the next 12 months is to harness the expertise and talent within our digital and data teams to support our clinical colleagues in providing the best care possible for our patients and families, through the use of technology.”