Here are our entries for the category of Partnership of the Year.
Alternative Futures Group
Overview: Alternative Futures Group is using bespoke technology to change lives across the North West.
Why? Alternative Futures Group supports over 800 people with a learning disability or mental health condition across the Northwest in community outreach and hospital settings. We aim to increase the number we support to over 1,000 in the next three years and are committed to investing in digital and technology to support this growth.
What happened? In 2023 a range of high specification assistive technology was installed in a bungalow in Parklands Court, our 13-bed scheme in Lancashire, as part of a bespoke package for a patient (named Alex for the purposes of the case study). Alex is 34 and has severe learning disabilities, autism and epilepsy. Alex’s support team at AFG and commissioner of his support package, Lancashire County Council, identified that Alex would benefit from assistive technology and worked together to research options and suppliers, eventually arriving at My Eco System. Working with Eco Living System and Lancashire County Council, a package of assistive technology has been installed into Alex’s bungalow to promote his independence and keep him safe. This includes a ‘SensFloor’, which is a sensor underlay utilising smart software which detects whether someone is lying on the floor, to alert support staff when Alex has an epileptic seizure during the night. There are speakers fitted into the ceiling which can be controlled by his support team or by Alex’s own voice. The infrastructure in Alex’s bungalow is connected to all 12 other bungalows in the scheme and can be added on to and adapted.
Looking ahead. Further developments are now possible in each of the properties and are currently being explored for people supported at Parklands Court, such as sensors that monitor movements which will help alert staff when a person supported is pacing up and down, which is a sign that their mental health is deteriorating.
NHS England
Overview: Delivering the ‘first of type’ support offer for the NHS’ flagship £2 billion digital transformation programme required partnering between NHS England and the PwC consortia, engaging with over 160 organisations implementing their ‘once in a generation’ local transformation with over 83 percent declaring improved delivery readiness.
Why? Levels of digital maturity vary across trusts in England, and paper-based or legacy systems are still common in hospitals. Burdening an already strained workforce, this lack of modernisation directly impacts organisations’ ability to deliver safe and quality care.
What happened? The Frontline Digitisation Support Offer was formed in partnership with NHS England and the PwC consortia. The partnership prioritised setting its values and behaviours through a ‘teaming session’ that brought all 12 SME teams, NHS England, PwC and its consortia. NHS England and PwC came together to agree partnership principles upfront, including a focus on collaboratively operating together to provide greater collective value to trusts in need of support, and using data insights to drive targeted support. Weekly meetings were held to share updates and ensure alignment with stakeholders, and continuous feedback was sought. The support offer has reached staff nationally, with all seven NHS regions accessing the support available. In total, the support offer has engaged with over 160 organisations from all care settings. The breakdown of engagement includes 45 Learning Labs covering all seven regions, 65+ trusts who have attended Learning Labs, 80k visits to the Online Hub to access online collateral, and 770+ members on the Community of Practice.
Looking ahead. The success of the support offer has been shared widely across multiple NHS internal and external forums, and the partnership hopes to see this expanded even further.
Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust and Imprivata
Overview: Successful digital transformation project at Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust carried out in partnership with Imprivata Managed Services.
Why? The catalyst for the partnership project with Imprivata was the planned implementation of its ePMA programme. A key issue at the time was the use of generic logins across the organisation, which did not provide the necessary protection and security for patient identification or an accurate audit trail.
What happened? The IT team identified that three different technology solutions were required: VMWare Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Imprivata, and Microsoft to provide secure, easy access for staff to applications. Communication and engagement were a top priority to gain an early understanding of each of the departmental challenges in the current workflows, and the project team then designed the solution around those. The Imprivata team played a key role in enrolment workshops the week before going live to get users up and running. Rollout of the technology solution was achieved within the six-month target, with successful user engagement and adoption of new secure workflow processes across all departments. Results showed over 92 percent successful enrolment for 3700 staff across the organisation, with 75 percent of staff currently using proximity card to login, improved user experience for clinicians and administration staff, and time saved from streamlined workflows put back into providing patient care.
Looking ahead. Using the same template, the project team is working on integration with the BetterMeds electronic prescribing and medication management solution as well as new clinical applications as they are introduced.
Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and Imprivata
Overview: Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and Imprivata partnership working delivers secure mobile access to healthcare systems improving efficiencies across the organisation.
Why? The catalyst for the project with Imprivata was the recent deployment of a new EPR system from Epic. The trust needed to set up and provision access to the system for over 30,000 active users, with limited resources.
What happened? The IT Team talked with Imprivata and discussed how Imprivata Identity Governance and Administration could assist with automating the provisioning and management of devices. Staff throughout the trust were set up with their individual digital identities across all key systems. A daily feed from the NHS Electronic Staff Record updates the starters, leavers and movers. As this is role based, staff are automatically set up with the access to systems that they require to carry out their job. The Imprivata team worked closely with the IT department to understand access issues and create an instant access system. The time taken to provision starters, leavers and movers has dramatically reduced. The new process uses algorithms to spot inactive accounts which can be closed, ensuring that licenses are managed at the correct level. This manages costs and improves cyber security by mitigating the risk of unused accounts. Now twice the number of tickets are being handled automatically by Identity Governance with average times to resolve reduced dramatically.
Looking ahead. The trust has a schedule of projects to gain even more benefit from the system, including EPR leaver downstream, transferring patients when doctors leave; and governance dashboards.
South Tees Waiting Well and Surgery Hero
Overview: Waiting Well (WW) South Tees launched as part of a region-wide ICB initiative to support the preoperative health of patients from socially-deprived communities across the North-East and North Cumbria, with an innovative patient support programme including personalised 1:1 digital health coaching delivered by Surgery Hero.
Why? Protracted waiting times erode physical and mental health. Deprived communities are disproportionately affected and North East North Cumbria has the highest rates of deprivation in England.
What happened? Launched in March 2023, the WW programme offers both face-to-face support and remote support delivered by Surgery Hero, providing preoperative support over eight weeks through a 1:1 health coaching programme with personalised goal-setting and multimodal lifestyle support via a mobile phone application. During the first six months, the team supported 177 patients, 97 face-to-face and 80 digitally. 45 percent of patients chose digital support in a population at risk of digital exclusion. Programme participation resulted in a 84 percent relative improvement in Quality of Life in the digital group, compared to 81 percent in the face-to-face group, despite the digital group starting from a lower baseline. Median hospital length of stay was also one day shorter in the digital group compared to face-to-face. The estimated total cost saving per patient was 55 percent with digital compared to face-to-face (£564 vs £1248 respectively), and the scaling of results with digital support across NENC offers a total cost saving of £1.8M.
Looking ahead. The partnership hopes to continue to promote digital inclusion for people facing major surgery in South Tees.
University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust
Overview: University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust is celebrating a milestone in their partnership with Netcall and e18 Innovation to validate their waiting lists, rapidly and simply.
Why? The NHS is grappling with a monumental challenge in managing its elective care waiting lists. University Hospital Sussex is one of the largest acute trusts in the UK. Validation of waiting lists is not only a requirement for but also a key aspect of the elective recovery plan.
What happened? UHSx implemented Netcall’s Waiting List validation solution, which automates the process of contacting patients waiting for their first appointment, sending reminders via SMS, email, and letters with QR codes as well as the implementation of Intelligent Automation via e18 Innovation to manage the responses and ensure the data is processed back into the UHSx patient administration system. The approach has resulted in over an 80 percent response rate and the removal of over 13 percent of patients who no longer wish to be on the waiting lists. By automating these responses, UHSx has saved over 266 hours per week in manual data entry, equivalent to seven full-time positions (c14,000 hours a year). By combining the unique strengths and expertise of each party, the partnership developed a comprehensive solution that significantly improves waiting list management, allowing for the rapid deployment of innovative technologies, enhancing operational efficiency and patient outcomes.
Looking ahead. The next step is to further enhance this automation process by integrating letter and telephone responses into the system, as well as extending automation to include additional patient cohorts and questions to improve patient communication and updating the PAS system.
Acacium Group and Ally Health
Overview: Acacium Group partnered with health tech platform Ally Health in 2023 to enhance last-mile healthcare through technology. The partnership enables efficient patient-practitioner matching, patient-led booking, and real-time updates.
Why? To enable efficient patient-practitioner matching, patient-led booking, and real-time updates. The collaboration improves healthcare delivery, sustainability, and patient empowerment, alleviating NHS pressure and expanding digital health offerings.
What happened? In 2023, Acacium Group partnered with Ally Health, an API-led platform that creates tech solutions for the last mile of healthcare. The platform enables patient-led booking and task optimisation and efficiently matches patients with practitioners using a proprietary algorithm. Tools for route optimisation and workflow efficiencies, such as patient-led booking and guided data collection, unlock more capacity for clinical care and provide transparency for patients. The user-friendly platform offers clear information on available services, healthcare provider credentials, and costs. The system also provides real-time tracking of appointment progress with multiple touchpoints, including live updates when practitioners are on their way, ensuring patients are always informed. This option led to a 220 percent increase in appointments for one men’s health provider over six months. Men’s health groups integrating Ally Health have seen a 130 percent revenue increase, driven by improved patient engagement and retention.
Looking ahead. The partnership will continue to focus on enabling digital health providers to expand their core offering, relieving pressure from the NHS and supporting excellent clinical care.
Doccla UK Limited
Overview: Since 2021, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) NHS@Home has partnered with Doccla to provide remote monitoring and virtual wards for acutely unwell people in their own homes.
Why? To help realise the NHS’ ambitions to care for 10,000 acutely ill patients on virtual wards, and to chart the path towards a more resilient, capacious healthcare system.
What happened? The partnership is built upon a strong foundation of synergy between multidisciplinary teams across Doccla, BrisDoc, Sirona, North Bristol Trust, University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Trust. Doccla provided a nominated support team to work in close partnership with the ICB to embed the remote monitoring solution. The partnership has realised benefits for BNSSG including 1,260+ patients supported through remote monitoring, 16,234 acute bed days saved since September 2022, and £3,263,034 saved from equivalent bed days. Service activity increased by 800 percent in the first 12 months alone, and five new pathways have become operational since launch, including Hospital at Home, Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy, Respiratory, Heart Failure, and Frailty and General. We have also launched a Living Well with COPD hub to scale anticipatory care via a step-up approach. Preliminary data extrapolated from North Bristol Trust based on 248 patients indicates a 63 percent reduction in A&E attendances.
Looking ahead. These pioneering pathways and projects have cross-fertilised with other virtual ward projects nationwide. Clinical leads in BNSSG have collaborated with clinical leads in Somerset and Gloucestershire ICB to share operational logistics, templated documents and standard operating procedures for future implementation.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Overview: Last year, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Flatiron Health UK announced a first-of-its-kind partnership in the UK to curate high quality real-world data to transform cancer research and care.
Why? Clinical trials are the ‘gold standard’ for evidence generation, but they are often not representative of the overall cancer population or real world settings.
What happened? Working in partnership, and with the support of patients and the public, LTHT and Flatiron have successfully curated high-quality, fully anonymised and research-ready datasets. Firstly, the team focused on an extensive programme of engagement to ensure it had the support of patients, the local community and LTHT staff. Secondly, underpinning this support, is the safe and secure management of data within the partnership, approved by the NHS Health Research Authority. Finally, LTHT and Flatiron jointly developed a fair value exchange to ensure the NHS trust not only benefits from a share in the value generated from its own data, but also gains access to high quality data for use in care and research. Keeping patients and the public at the heart of the partnership; ensuring the safe and secure handling of patient data; and making sure the NHS benefits fairly have been the key ingredients of this successful NHS data partnership.
Looking ahead. The partnership hopes to inspire similar partnerships with other NHS Trusts, to help support the transformation of cancer research and care in the UK.
Mersey and West Lancs Teaching Hospital Trust
Overview: Demonstrating a successful partnership and collaboration between the digital nursing team and clinical education team at MWL, allowing for the delivery of improved training on clinical digital systems.
Why? To help support the trust in achieving its digital maturity objectives, delivering high-quality, clinically-driven digital training for HCAs and nursing staff new to the sector and its systems.
What happened? Education and training leads collaborated with the digital nursing team to support new staff to become more digitally literate and empower them with confidence to navigate new and enhanced clinical digital systems safely. The Digital Nursing Team takes new HCAs through digital systems for a whole day as part of the one week full-time training programme. The team also holds a digital nurse workshop and supports training in a simulated ward environment on the preceptorship programme for new staff. The training has received excellent feedback from staff through post-session surveys, and the trust has improved the efficiency of capturing patient observations. 173 HCAs and 243 nursing staff have undergone the training, and 50/60 more HCAs are due to follow in early 2024. The partnership and collaboration between the trust’s education and training staff and the digital nursing team has resulted in a tangible improvement in the accuracy of digital tool usage. The percentage of breached observations has dropped dramatically, from almost 25 percent to under 15 percent, so fewer patients are being put at risk.
Looking ahead. The trust’s educational and upskilling programme plans to continue to meet the diverse needs of staff groups and departments, embedding a culture of continuous learning, and positioning itself as a scalable model for replication.
Vertis Health
Overview: Vertis Health uses digital resources to manage lipids in primary care, working on achieving targets focused on lipids management and counselling patients to reduce the risk of avoidable hospital admissions.
Why? Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of avoidable mortality in England, often resulting in long-term disability.
What happened? NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB procured AnalyseRx, to support practices in identifying patients at high risk of an admission as a result of medication to help keep them out of hospital. A Local Improvement Scheme called The Clinical Excellence and Investment Framework (CEIF) was co-designed between the ICB, practices and PCNs to support delivery of national priorities and services. FDB consulted with H&W ICB to understand regional and local priorities before reviewing national indicators within AnalyseRx that could support CEIF and other core requirements. Initial searches in the GP clinical system surfaced patients who met the criteria for benefitting from a lipid lowering therapy. Using the AnalyseRx integrated dashboard, filters were applied to identify specific patient cohorts that met the criteria. AnalyseRx was able to show where there was a missed opportunity for that patient that they could benefit from being resolved. The percentage of patients on appropriate LLT for the secondary prevention of CVD was increased to 95 percent.
Looking ahead. FDB ensures continuous support and engagement through regular feedback sessions, virtual training, and an online support hub.
Modality Partnership
Overview: Modality and GOQii UK developed a comprehensive health ecosystem that integrates a multi-channel digital platform with a GP-led service. This innovative long-term condition management approach incorporates the support of skilled virtual health coaches working alongside GPs.
Why? Faced with significant national challenges in access and recruitment, and with data indicating increasing demand due to an ageing population, our vision was to create a digital transformation team to pioneer new initiatives and pathways.
What happened? The solution was mobilised seamlessly with a new National Lifestyles team established within Modality Partnership who took the lead in coordinating the service with GOQii. Our national lifestyles team planned communications to staff and patients to help them understand the new service. Local practice staff engage with patients to raise awareness of the coaches and the services they provide. The GOQii platform made it easy for patients to manage everything via an app, including accessing resources, scheduling appointments, and messaging coaches. The service now has capacity to provide 8,800 coaching appointments per month enabling personalised care planning and lifestyle support to be offered to the entire patient population of 470,000. Patient identification and referral skills within practices have improved and local Health Coaches and Social Prescribers employed by PCNs are working collaboratively with remote coaches to broaden our support offer. Key patient outcomes include an 85 percent reduction in medication use, and a 10 percent reduction in weight and waist circumference.
Looking ahead. The partnership hopes to continue to drive improvements for practices with the support of skills virtual health coaches working alongside GPs.
Consultant Connect and University Hospitals of Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust
Overview: The innovative Paediatrics 2WW Pathway that is speeding up cancer diagnoses and avoiding unnecessary hospital visits and anxiety for patients.
Why? The existing route for primary care clinicians to contact secondary care when seeing children with suspected cancer was time-consuming and convoluted for already busy primary care practitioners.
What happened? University Hospitals of Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust (UHCW) set up and launched a new Paediatric 2WW Pathway via Consultant Connect. The service launched within two weeks and comprises a telephone and messaging line used concurrently, allowing clinicians in primary care to call specialists at the touch of a button and then follow up with a message, attaching clinical images, reports and/or documents if an urgent referral is advised. Queries are monitored by a rota of local consultant paediatricians and cancer specialists, with backup provided by acute general paediatricians as needed, fitting in with clinicians’ existing schedules. The pathway bypasses the hospital switchboard and has dramatically sped up cancer diagnoses for children and young people, fast-tracking patients with concerning symptoms for specialist treatment. In the last 12 months, the Paediatric 2WW Pathway telephone line has received 134 calls, with an 84 percent first-time connection rate. Calls were answered within 17 seconds on average. 39 percent of all calls resulted in the patient avoiding an unnecessary 2WW referral.
Looking ahead. The partnership hopes to continue to help drive efficiencies and improvements through the Paediatrics 2WW Pathway.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health & Digital Health and Care Wales
Overview: Digital Growth Chart Wales is a clinically led system for paediatric growth charts across Wales, enabling clinicians in any setting to share growth measurements through a national system.
Why? A broad range of health professionals record child growth in various care settings across Wales using paper growth charts or disparate systems and data sets results in multiple incomplete copies with vital growth information lost or inaccessible. This clinical risk impairs clinicians’ assessment of growth.
What happened? Clinician coders at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) developed an open-source Application Programming Interface (API) that can be plugged into electronic health records. Working together, the RCPCH developed an innovative open-source growth measures capability and DHCW brought the clinically led integrated care system alongside the national architecture to make it available across care settings. The RCPCH Digital growth charts platform delivers a more flexible digital equivalent of the paper growth charts, performs the calculations of child growth parameters with reliable instant results, and enables a ‘do once and share’ approach providing a single, national, validated system for accurate growth recording. The RCPCH interactive growth charts include percentiles, standard deviation scores, BMI and gestational correction. Digital Growth Chart Wales boasts a user-friendly interface that simplifies the process of tracking, reviewing and contributing to growth data.
Looking ahead. Once the software is live, the clinical user group will prioritise future development and inform wider rollout to maximise clinical benefits gained.
Next up: browse entries for the Best Use of Digital for Primary Care category here.
