A revised programme plan has been prepared by George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust, following a decision to delay the go-live of its EPR from October 2026 to August 2027.
Late last year, the boards of George Eliot and South Warwickshire University trusts set out the initial October 2026 go-live date, highlighting the potential costs of programme delays, saying: “The programme has very limited contingency time, and delays to the programme timescale are estimated at a cost of £1 million per month.”
According to the most recent update, a “failure of the M3 Validate Gateway” resulted in the re-planning exercise to inform a revised go-live date of 14 August 2027. “The re-planning exercise has been completed with all key stakeholders, based on the technical critical path, to establish a deliverable plan that mitigates the significant risks with the 2026 timeline,” the GEH board states. “The programme re-plan costs will be subject to a more detailed review, with the supplier costs reviewed through commercial discussions, and the internal programme costs to undergo further scrutiny.”
The EPR business case and benefits are now under review with a focus on assessing the impact of the revised timeline and “descoping for maternity and community”. For now, an exit from the testing phase is expected in April 2027, followed by activation in July 2027, ahead of the August launch. The M3 Validate Gateway has been passed, according to the trust, and previously identified risks around design, build, data migration, and testing have been resolved.
Following a governance review, an EPR delivery group will take on responsibility for operational delivery, the board states. Meetings will also reportedly have a change in their membership to ensure the right input is received to deliver the appropriate responsibilities effectively. A digital clinical advisory group has been established with representation from clinical, nursing, and operational teams across all divisions, led by trust CCIOs.
Due to a lack of functionality to enable community service workflows, community 0-19 services have been descoped from the programme, with EMIS EPR procured instead, and implementation already having commenced, GEH shares. A phased approach to go-live will see the first wave launch in February 2027, and will mean the same system is in use across all Coventry and Warwickshire adult and children community services, it continues, promoting greater alignment and a more seamless service for patients.
“The August 2027 re-plan provides a clinically and operationally safe route to EPR go-live, supported by a revised and staffing model, strengthened delivery controls, and effective programme governance,” the trust outlines. “The programme remains dependent on confirmation of affordability and the identification of an agreed funding route, including the development and submission of a business case to NHSE. Subject to these approvals, the proposed approach provides the required assurance that the programme can continue to progress against the revised timeline, while managing the key workforce, financial and delivery risks through established governance arrangements.”
Staff engagement is ongoing, with workshops focused on organisational readiness having begun in June 2026, and scheduled to take place every three months. The June workshop saw involvement from senior leaders to clarify local ownership, identify key risks and dependencies, and agree practical actions. It also saw involvement from UHCW, who offered a detailed overview of the cutover and go-live activities undertaken during their own programme.
100 percent of workflows have now been completed in the localisation phase, the trust goes on, enabling transformation activities linked to those workflows to begin. A new EPR programme director has been appointed with “significant Oracle experience” to strengthen the programme delivery team, and the trust is working with KPMG and NHSE to review productivity lessons learned from EPR deployments nationwide, to minimise productivity impact through go-live and post go-live.
GEH offers further updates on its ambient voice technology programme, which was a dependent project to the EPR programme. The MModal system is now live across GEH and South Warwickshire.
Wider trend: EPR
HTN was joined by a fantastic panel including Shanker Vijayadeva, GP lead – digital transformation at NHS England (London region); Rosie Gilbert, head of digital programmes at Sherwood Forest Hospitals; Tom Stocker, CHIO and EPR advisor; and Jatinder Punia, director of sales at Nervecentre, to discuss the future of EPRs. Our panel considered the road ahead in the short, medium, and long term; the potential for AI, AVT, and automation; emerging opportunities; and practical realities of EPR programmes on the ground.
The board of directors of York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals has discussed its use of ambient voice technology, Copilot, and the next phase of the EPR. The trust reported the successful delivery of the second tranche of its EPR programme at the beginning of October, following initial go-live of its Nervecentre EPR in May. Functionality introduced across the two initial tranches includes observations and clinical documentation for inpatients; urgent and emergency care; pathology and radiology investigations and results for inpatients and UEC; ePMA; and bed management. Tranche three is expected to go live in June 2027, and will cover PAS, theatres, endoscopy, medical device integration, e-consent, and outpatient use of clinical documentation, ePMA, and investigations.
King’s College Hospital and Guy’s and St Thomas’ have reported savings of £4.1 million from their combined use of the Epic EPR system. The trusts point to the avoidance of 3.3 million duplicate or repeat tests, saving up to 275,000 hours of nursing and phlebotomy time since 2023. This has been supported by the system automatically cancelling duplicate blood test orders placed within one hour of each other, the trust notes. Automated alerts generated when clinicians order repeat tests sooner than recommended by national and Royal College guidelines, are credited with preventing 384,000 tests and saving £3.6 million.
