North West London Acute Provider Group has shared an update on its digital and data plans for 2026/27, noting efforts to improve data sharing and reshape strategic objectives to focus on patient and staff experiences with technology, AI, automation, EPR, and the federated data platform.
Work is continuing toward the digitisation of paper-based records, sharing data, and providing patients with direct access to their information, the group notes, whilst strategic objectives have been revised with a focus on the experiences of patients and staff when interacting with services and technology. It observes a transition from project-led delivery to a more integrated digital portfolio aligned with group strategy, and a need for enhanced portfolio assurance, financial visibility, and dependency mapping.
Capital expenditure and commitments are “tracking broadly in line with expectations”, the board suggests, as progress is seen on digital and infrastructure projects covering clinical systems, EPR, integration platforms, and patient-facing digital tools. Managing cyber and operational risk is a priority for investment, it continues, including with the replacement of end of life infrastructure.
On infrastructure, NWL APG points to its focus on supporting cross-group working, and the deployment of a group-wide wireless network that enables staff members to move between sites and connect using organisational devices. Other areas of work are the migration of local files to SharePoint, multi-factor authentication for windows, virtual desktops, and single sign-on.
The group explains its decision to move away from a model focused primarily on robotic process automation and toward a broader programme incorporating AI to automate manual processes. Plans are in place as part of a strategic outline case for governance, opportunity-routing, priority areas, operating principles, pathfinder selection logic, and resourcing requirements, it says. An AI governance paper is to be prepared to outline board ownership, group-wide oversight, risk controls, and governance, including responsibility for monitoring and intervention.
In early October, the group publicised its intent to procure an AVT solution, launching a market engagement opportunity. Estimates are that a future contract for the solution will run from 1 April 2027 to 31 March 2030, a total of three years. Suppliers were invited to take part in an engagement to help shape its procurement strategy, with an aim to ensure requirements for an upcoming procurement exercise are “realistic, deliverable and aligned to current market capabilities”.
Elsewhere, “material progress” is reported on the stabilisation, standardisation, and extension of the Cerner EPR ecosystem, NWL APG states, with an emphasis on patient safety, interoperability, operational efficiency, and digital front door capability for urgent and emergency care. Recent deployments are said to be progressing well with the FDP, and operational applications have now been deployed across all four trusts in the group, such as a referral management system and a discharge planning tool.
Looking ahead, the group outlines plans to manage risk around system convergence by including an assessment of both opportunities for increased benefit and resulting increased risk in every relevant business case. Where possible, it explores, this should score risks for cyber, service failure, supplier failure, and business continuity. “Convergence of ICT infrastructure, services and systems across the group creates a risk of a business continuity event affecting secondary care provision across the whole of North West London,” the board adds.
Wider trend: Progress on AI and AVT across NHS Trusts
HTN was joined by an expert panel including Neill Crump, group associate director for innovation and partnerships at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals and The Dudley Group, and Sameer Gangoli, clinical and governance lead for AI at University Hospitals Sussex, to discuss AI in healthcare. Our panel shared approaches, best practices, challenges, successes, and learnings for the practical implementation of AI technologies across NHS Trusts, moving on to explore measuring benefits, as well as assessing security and governance.
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust has shared updates on its use of AVT, offering an insight into how it is being used to support the patient experience. Earlier this year, the trust reported that a technical validation had been completed, with a phased roll out of the technology beginning with surgery and haematology in January 2026. “The AVT solution is based on an upgraded version of existing digital dictation product (Epro),” it noted. The AVT programme has followed a coordinated roll out across priority use cases, according to The Christie, focusing on improving clinical efficiency, documentation quality, and patient experience.
An AI project from PharosAI, a collaboration between Barts Health NHS Trust, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), and King’s College London (KCL), has received funding from Innovate UK to explore the potential to develop digital twins of human tissue. The project, DESTINY, aims to understand whether AI can predict complex biological information from routinely collected tissue data, with the hopes of helping researchers better understand cancer, discover new drugs, and develop more personalised approaches to diagnosis and treatment.
