nhs digital transformation case study

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Illustrative case studies

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Case studies are illustrative and not based on real life candidates.

Page last reviewed: 15 March 2024 Next review due: 15 March 2025

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Digital transformation in the NHS and social care

19 April 2022

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DigitalHealth.London connects health and care staff, digital health companies and academics, and equips them to improve the NHS and social care in London through digital technology. As part of supporting this vision, DigitalHealth.London runs a 12-month Digital Pioneer Fellowship programme that supports up to 40 NHS and social care staff from all levels to design, lead and deliver innovative digital transformation projects within their organisations. The programme has so far supported 97 fellows from 45 NHS organisations across London and the South East and was shortlisted for the HSJ award for Workforce Initiative of the Year 2021.

Key benefits and outcomes

• 97 NHS staff across 45 organisations in London and the South East have been supported so far.
• All projects undertaken by Fellows have led to improved patient care or experience either directly or indirectly.
• 32 per cent of Fellows said that their project was not just more successful but was delivered more quickly.
• All Fellows surveyed in cohorts 1 and 2 were confident that being part of the Fellowship was of benefit to their career.

What the organisation faced

Five years ago, using digital solutions in healthcare was less common, and there were fewer digital roles in the NHS and social care. Many people were asked to step into digital roles, however, there was often a gap between their experience and what was being asked of them. Without a network of digital colleagues to share learning, those roles were difficult. It was also hard for organisations to set clear key performance indicators (KPIs) for digital staff, or to identify what skills they needed.

DigitalHealth.London recognised that the successful implementation of digital innovations required NHS and social care staff to have support, guidance, and space to develop new skills, form collaborations and manage change. Focusing on building the capabilities of staff to bring about digital transformation would significantly increase the success of introducing technology into the NHS.

While digital leadership programmes already existed for clinical staff, CIOs and NHS leaders, the Digital Pioneer Fellowship was created to support NHS staff both clinical and non-clinical, and across any organisational level. This approach aimed to create a strong network across London and a truly digitally enabled workforce.

What the organisation did

The Digital Pioneer Fellowship programme was launched in 2018 to support innovators within the NHS to lead and deliver digital transformation projects and was promoted in NHS trusts across London and the South East . In the first year of the programme over 80 per cent of the Fellows surveyed, reported that they gained specific technical skills or had met an individual challenge thanks to the Fellowship.

DigitalHealth.London is a collaboration between MedCity, CW+ and two of London’s Academic Health Science Networks – UCL Partners and the Health Innovation Network. Through sponsorship, the Fellowship is free to both the Fellow and the organisation they work for.

The goal of the 12-month Digital Pioneer Fellowship is to support up to 40 people employed by NHS organisations in London and the South East. The type of digital project the Fellow works on can either be the adoption of technology (for example, implementing a digital health app) or it could be a transformation project (for example, introducing digital vaccine passports, or making a process paperless).

The individuals taking part attend six learning days across the year, where they access expert-led workshops, resources and taught modules on key topics. The Fellowship is designed to equip the fellows with new skills and knowledge, from building good business cases and using Agile as a project delivery technique, to structuring a good evaluation, and implementing change management principles.

The programme also provides the Fellows with peer-to-peer support through action learning sets , which allow the Fellows to support one another, share issues, create solutions and challenge one another to develop their leadership skills.  Finally, each Fellow can select a mentor from a number of high-profile leaders in business, the NHS and the health and care sector.

Results and benefits

The programme has, to date, supported 97 members of NHS and social care staff across 45 organisations in London and the South East . DigitalHealth.London saw a 48 per cent increase in applications for the 2020-21 Fellowship programme, suggesting the reputation and impact in the sector is renowned and the need for the programme is growing.

All 97 projects undertaken by Fellows so far have led to improved patient care and/or experience either directly or indirectly.

Mark Needham, Programme Director at Digital First, led a health and care team to build a digital bridge to connect 195 GP practices with 500 care homes during the Covid-19 pandemic. At the end of his year as a Fellow, 500 homes were estimated to have benefited, including 25,000 members of the workforce who support 12,000 residents. Going into the autumn of 2021, the project was half-way to its target of digitally monitoring 6,000 patients.

You can read more about Mark’s project here .

When surveyed, 32 per cent of Fellows said that their project was not just more successful as a result of the Fellowship but was also delivered more quickly. This meant patients saw the benefits sooner and it allowed trusts to start saving money much earlier.

“The insights from the Digital Pioneer Fellowship programme have been incredibly valuable to my development. The peer groups organised by the programme were particularly valuable to share learning and focus on delivering better outcomes for people.” Mark Needham, programme participant.

Overcoming obstacles

The benefit of a London-wide programme is the network it provides and the learning opportunities between different organisations and ICSs. To maximise this benefit and make the Fellowship available to as many members of NHS staff and organisations as possible, there are a number of factors that challenge delivery:

The number of applications received each year for a limited number of spaces.  

Each year the programme can support between 30 and 40 Fellows but for the 2020/21 programme, 98 applications were received . Most of these additional applicants would benefit from support but spaces are limited and not all projects can be included.

Ensuring role and Fellow diversity

Diversity is crucial to not just the programme’s success, but also the wider peer learning of the Fellows. Some groups of NHS staff are more often underrepresented and are less likely to put themselves forward for the opportunity, so wide-scale outreach during the application process and diversity in the selection is important.

Sponsorship

For this programme to continue delivering benefits, sponsorship from public and private organisations who support this initiative and see mutual benefits are vital.

Alumni network

Fellows keep in touch with each other regularly, but it is also important for DigitalHealth.London to help maintain these relationships so both the organisation and the Fellow can keep up to date with the developments in digital health. This will become more of a priority as the network grows, and the DigitalHealth.London team focuses on embedding the Fellows into as many other DigitalHealth.London programmes of work as possible, for example giving the Fellows the opportunity to support selection of the companies on the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator programme or to mentor for the Horizon Fellowship .

Takeaway tips

• Try to mix learning levels and abilities for group work.
• Having a mentor is very important for individuals leading change on the ground but the mentors themselves also gain helpful insight through the relationship.
• Peer-to-peer learning is one of the most useful aspects of the programme and highly valued by NHS and social care staff.

Future plans

DigitalHealth.London will open applications for NHS staff to apply for the next cohort to grow their skills and support digital transformation later this year.

In the meantime, the DigitalHealth.London team is delivering the Horizon Fellowship. Due to the success of the Fellowship and the positive experience some staff had, DigitalHealth.London was approached by CW+, the charity of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, to deliver the Horizon Fellowship , a programme incorporating the learning days from the Digital Pioneer Fellowship with additional ringfenced project time and funding for staff across their two sites, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and Middlesex Hospital.

Contact details

For further information on this case study please contact Dr Katya Masconi-Yule, Senior Programme Manager via [email protected]

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Transformation Directorate

Our strategy to digitise, connect and transform

Digitise, connect, transform: Digital transformation in health and social care

At NHSX we support local health and care organisations to digitise services, connect systems, and transform the way care is delivered across the NHS and social care sector.

Intelligent use of technology and data has been fundamental to the COVID-19 pandemic response. And we have already seen incredible examples of how digital and data have transformed the delivery of care. During the peaks, daily analysis of transmission data allowed problems to be understood rapidly, and resources deployed to the right places, while world class genomics allowed us to identify and track new Covid variants. Just as access to data enabled medical research to deliver safe, effective and accessible treatments in record time.

As we look at the NHS’s long term recovery, digital solutions will continue to help us meet the challenges we’re already facing, and the new ones that have arisen as a result.

At NHSX we are transforming care, enabled by digital technology. There are 3 core areas of focus.

Our first focus is on levelling up health and care providers and services with the same core digital infrastructure. We plan to extend digital maturity in NHS trusts, we will digitise social care records and put in place core standards.

Our second focus is on connecting, enabling more integrated care and ensuring that information is in the right place at the right time. We’re making sure basic shared care records are in place across local areas, digitising maternity records, and developing digital child health records. And we are publishing a target architecture to explain how national and local data and services should fit together.

Transformation then follows, using digital technology to reimagine rather than simply enhance services. This will include developing national digital services to give people more control of their care and enabling more long term condition monitoring at home. We’ll support ICS’s with products and services for population health management to improve health and reduce health inequalities. We are working with partners to support health and care systems transformation. We are doing this this by consolidating tech funding, strengthening regulation and building digital skills for staff.

We have published a comprehensive data strategy, to enable a truly data driven health and care system, have published guidance on ‘what good looks like’ for digital transformation across health and care, and a strategy for sustainable tech funding.

While NHSX provides the support, guidance, standards and funding, it's local health and care staff and leaders who will make digital transformation a reality. If we unite around this vision and plan, then together, we can make things better for staff, and provide better care and improved outcomes for everyone.

So, get involved and read about digital transformation for health and care.

During the pandemic we have seen incredible examples of the way digital has transformed the delivery of care.

The need now is for the health and care sector to adopt digital tools, urgently and consistently, to address both our long term health improvement goals and the immediate tasks of recovering from the pandemic.

Our strategy is to digitise services, connect them to support integration and, through these foundations, enable service transformation.

We have set the ambition for the majority of health and social care services to have digital foundations in place, including electronic records, by March 2025. At present only 20% of NHS organisations are digitally mature, although 86% have a form of electronic patient record in place. Only 45% of social care providers have any form of digital care records. When paper processes and outdated systems are replaced by modern electronic health or social care records, staff and people will be able to safely access information when they need it and at a time and place that is convenient to them.

A connected health and care system means that information can flow safely and seamlessly between IT systems, care providers and settings. The insights generated from it can help to tailor services to the needs of populations, enable more targeted care and reduce unnecessary interventions.

The real value of digital technology comes not from digitising existing practices, but from using it to reengineer them completely. In banking or retail for example, digital has changed the entire business model. Health and social care, by contrast, have changed how they provide services remarkably little. We must design inclusive services to benefit those whose health outcomes and outlook are poorest.

A plan for digital health and social care

The Plan for Digital Health and Social Care sets out a vision for a digitally enabled health and social care system and how we can achieve it, it collates existing digital strategies, plans and guidance into one single action plan. It is aimed at health and social care leaders across the system, and industry partners to help them plan for the future.

In the document we make clear our priorities for digital transformation and begin to set out the support that will be available to local systems to enable the changes that are needed.

What Good Looks Like

The What Good Looks Like guidance sets out a common vision for good digital practice to empower frontline leaders to accelerate digital transformation in their organisations. Going forward, the programme will provide a comprehensive and practical set of tools, guidelines and best practices for NHS leaders to achieve meaningful digital transformation. The What Good Looks Like guidance has seven success measures that frontline NHS systems and organisations across England should aim to reach, and it was included in the 2021 to 2022 Operational Planning and Contracting Guidance, and the ICS Design Framework.

Who Pays for What

Who Pays for What (WPfW) identifies the barriers faced by the system when it comes to investment in digital technology, and proposes actions to overcome these barriers in 2021 to 2022 and beyond. This year, we will consolidate existing national funding for transformational tech projects into a single fund - the Unified Tech Fund - and take steps to support ICSs to make better investments. Over time, we propose to move away from central funding of frontline tech, giving ICSs more control over the resources with which to deliver their tech plans. We are keen for your feedback on these proposals.

Unified Tech Fund

The Unified Tech Fund (UTF), part of the WPfW strategy, seeks to simplify and consolidate the process for accessing technology funding. The UTF brings together multiple existing technology funds. It will enable staff in NHS organisations and ICSs to understand a number of different elements of funding available for digital and to apply for them through a single mechanism. It also means there’s transparency and fairness with the visibility of who has applied for what.

Together these products will help local leaders to accelerate digital transformation in their organisations and support the NHS Long Term commitment to digitise the entire NHS for the benefit of patients and staff.

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Complete digital transformation programme and new working information management model for nhs trust.

With 900+ A&E patients every day and 1.3 million outpatient appointments every year, this trust is one of the largest NHS trusts in the country, and one of Britain’s leading healthcare providers. With over 26,000 staff, the trust serves 2.5 million people across London and manages five hospital sites. Their mission is to provide safe and quality care for patients, many of whom come from some of the most diverse and deprived communities in Britain.

The trust had the ambition to improve its records management processes and wanted to take advantage of new digital workplace options that could assist them with their information management strategies.

They had recently removed any dependencies on outdated existing services hosted on-premises and wanted to step away from inefficient paper-based processes. Following the transition of NHSMail to a Microsoft 365 based infrastructure, the trust had the option to move its collaboration and information management assets into NHS Digital’s shared tenant and define information governance. This project provided an ideal opportunity to undertake a complete digital transformation initiative, incorporating data migration, digitising business processes, and developing a communications portal and collaboration tooling into the scope of a programme of works to ultimately save time and costs. The healthcare provider is now fit for the future with long-term strategies in place for leveraging a cloud-based modern workplace – a new era of collaboration.

As an organisation new to Microsoft 365, the trust wanted to take advantage of the records management capabilities and collaboration features within the shared NHS tenant but understood there might be some challenges by not having overall control of the solution.

Following initial strategic consultancy from Intelogy as to whether the new shared NHS tenant met their needs or whether they needed to consider their own environment, the trust chose to join the shared NHS tenancy within Microsoft 365, providing them with a central platform that connected them to over 1.5 million other staff across the NHS. It is centrally administered by a third party, and unsurprisingly for such a widely shared platform, had restrictions on what could and couldn’t be set up for specific trusts. Additionally, an opportunity was identified to work more collaboratively across a large proportion of the NHS user base and promote networks of staff across different locations who work in the same fields, to build a better collaborative model across the trust, and the wider NHS community.

Solution Overview

Tenancy option analysis.

The NHS trust started with a need to make a decision to move their data into a new tenant or join the NHS’s shared tenant. Intelogy performed an assessment of both options, including configuration, administration options, policies, licensing, and security. We presented the ICT leadership team with a recommendations report, which helped the team to reach the decision to join the NHS Digital shared tenant and we were consequently chosen to help them make the most of this environment.

To kick off the project, Intelogy worked with the NHS trust to gather the key stakeholders and hosted a number of workshops that identified requirements for the new working environment, as well as focussed effort on presenting how implementation will be carried out, taking into consideration the necessary measures that are in place on the shared environment. Together, we built a strategy that enabled the design of an approach to manage the large-scale deployment of Microsoft Teams, communicate and work with staff, provide guidance and support and ensure success.

Information management was a critical factor in this project, and so working in close partnership with NHS Digital we were able to validate our needs against the capabilities already available and in the pipeline, working according to their release timelines to ensure we implemented a robust, flexible and efficient architecture. Despite the necessary constraints in place on the shared tenant, we managed to plan implementation and communications in line with the launch windows of new features that allow NHS trusts to make the most of the platform and the many benefits it has to offer.

Modern Workplace setup

The intention was for Microsoft Teams to become the “go-to” place for staff during their working day. Now that the NHS trust had joined the shared tenant, this not only enabled better connectivity and collaboration across departments and hospitals, but also across different trusts. Private messaging and Teams conversations were now easily available to anyone, anywhere.

We always recommend to our clients that they implement some form of control over the creation of new teams, to help prevent what’s known as “Teams Sprawl”, and this was especially true for the NHS trust, given the scale of their user base and the nature of the content with which they work. Fortunately, by nature of the tenant’s configuration, only administrators are able to create teams, which therefore left us with the challenge of designing a process appropriate for managing, vetting and approving requests for teams before they reach the admin group to create them.

Working with members of the ICT and Information Governance teams, we designed a process that integrated seamlessly with the NHS trust’s existing service desk solution so that requests can be entered and automatically routed through to the appropriate person for each directorate to review and approve. Only then will the request reach ICT who will be requested to create the team. To better manage the creation, we provided a semi-automatic method by which teams (and their associated SharePoint sites) are auto-configured with consistent settings and metadata within the SharePoint Document library. Additionally, sites were associated with a corresponding “hub” to build on the ongoing information architecture and ease of access to relevant content.

Once completed, the request itself becomes a record, and can be used going forward as part of ongoing reporting strategies.

Once implemented, communications and training strategies were updated so that staff could be aware of the process to request a new team or SharePoint site.

Data Migration

We undertook a series of pilot activities to migrate departmental content from legacy sources (SharePoint Server and file shares) to SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams. This, along with further investigative activities, allowed us to construct a longer-term plan (as well as documented architecture) that the NHS trust could take and implement themselves, with our support as needed.

With millions of files to consider, not to mention the impact on services in the process, migration had to be carefully managed. The recommendations we put in place have led to longer-term approaches to eventually move staff away from legacy sources and into Microsoft 365.

Staff engagement portal

Intelogy designed a new, modern mini intranet using SharePoint Online, for the purposes of supporting the Microsoft 365 digital transformation programme. The intranet provided the NHS trust with a platform that:

• Gave a fresh, clean experience which in turn provided a positive first impression of SharePoint (accessible on desktop and mobile devices)
• Provided access to news and updates on the digital transformation programme
• Introductions to the various elements of Microsoft 365, and what they mean for each staff member
• Provided access to a series of tailor-made guidance materials for the different solutions available
• Allowed registration for trust-wide webinars, and access to recorded videos after their presentation dates
• Provided a source for FAQs, with the ability to ask questions

Client benefits/results

The NHS Trust engaged with Intelogy at a time that was particularly busy for them due to the ongoing pandemic. They relied on us to provide them with the answers to key questions and problems, define strategies and work closely within their team to ensure success. The end result of the digital transformation programme provided them with:

• A communications strategy, implemented prior to launch, informing staff of upcoming changes
• A comprehensive, SharePoint-based communications portal providing a wealth of information and support
• A series of staff webinars, covering a number of topics (which were recorded, and made available on the portal)
• A governance process associated with provisioning of teams and SharePoint sites, keeping things as simple as possible, and providing a managed, consistent output
• This included consistent metadata columns, sourcing information from centrally managed taxonomies
• A governance process associated with how staff access other areas such as Microsoft Forms
• A strategy for the long-term goal of migrating all content away from legacy sources

Together, these results gave the NHS trust a framework in which staff are able to openly collaborate across teams and locations, but also with teams in other NHS trusts – something that was not previously possible (at least, in a way that was efficient). The implementation of Microsoft Teams sought to break down silos and instead build networks, all working more efficiently together using the new tools that have become available. All with the end goal, as was stated to us, of “now being able to spend more time with patients”.

Future plans with Intelogy

Since opening the doors to Microsoft 365 and the many benefits it has to offer, we have worked with multiple departments to create solutions that manage specific types of documents (records, policies, processes etc.). Staff are now beginning to embrace the efficiencies that can be made through effective design and automation in their working areas.

The NHS trust also signed up for Intelogy’s Support and Continuous (SCI) service. This allowed us to continue to act as an extension to their teams, providing technical support as well as undertaking additional consultancy, and rapid solution design.

“We are excited about our ongoing relationship with the NHS trust and can’t wait to see the many changes that are to come for them, enabling better ways of working”. Alex Franklin, Solution Architect at Intelogy

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Case studies: benefits for patients

Every day, NHS staff and clinicians are delivering care in new and innovative ways, achieving better outcomes for patients and driving efficiency. Scaling and sharing these innovations across the health and care system in England is a key challenge for the NHS.

We need to continue to harness the power of data to ensure we care for our patients, improve population health, plan and improve services, research new medical treatments and find new ways to deliver patient care.

Using data to benefit patients

The case studies and blogs below demonstrate the benefits that are already being realised by patients through the use of better data and showcase positive examples of the NHS delivering improved high quality care in a number of different settings across the country.

Case studies

• Patient flow and discharge improvements at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust (video)
• Staff time savings and more surgeries for patients in North Cumbria
• North West NHS trust cuts waiting list and last-minute cancellations
• Patients being seen faster in South London
• Great Western NHS Foundation Trust improves hospital theatre efficiency
• Technology helps cancer patients to be seen sooner
• AI tool improving outcomes for patients by forecasting A&E admissions
• New data-led solution reduces delays to patient discharges
• New technology cutting waiting times for patients in Dorset
• Taking patients with us on the Federated Data Platform
• Better insights, better decisions, better health
• Unlocking the power of data to improve patient care

Case studies

August 2024

Cheshire and Merseyside (C&M) Endoscopy Network commissioned the NHS Transformation Unit (NHS TU) to provide programme management and leadership to implement an Endoscopy Transformation Programme across the region. This meant working with a wide group of stakeholders including six providers…

Cheshire and Merseyside (C&M) Endoscopy Network commissioned the NHS Transformation Unit (NHS TU) to produce a NHSE short-form business case. The business case aimed to support the network in securing capital funding to transform endoscopy services across C&M and was…

We were commissioned by Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent (SSOT) Integrated Care Board to support the Infrastructure Strategy Lead by providing high quality analytics to deliver a 10-year estates strategy investment projection for Primary and Secondary Care. The Challenge The…

Treatments for head and neck cancers (HNC) commonly affect a person’s ability to speak, use their voice, swallow, smell and breathe, significantly affecting quality of life. Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs) are core members of the head and neck cancer…

The NHS Transformation Unit (TU) were commissioned to develop a five-year workforce strategy and education and training plan for the health and care system across Lancashire and South Cumbria. Looking at the entire workforce across health, social care and voluntary,…

We have significant experience in diagnostics ranging from pathology, imaging, endoscopy and community diagnostic centres. Recently we worked with the Greater Manchester Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) Programme and local acute healthcare providers to design, develop, articulate, and pilot diagnostic pathways.…

Introduction The NHS Transformation Unit supported the development of a HM Treasury green book compliant business case for implementing electronic bed and capacity management systems (eBCMS) and care coordination centres across acute trusts. The Challenge The challenge in urgent and…

January 2024

The NHS Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) Screening programme aims to reduce AAA related mortality by screening men aged 65. The Challenge A significant challenge for the AAA screening programme is the lack of skilled workforce – a national issue also…

December 2023

We reviewed the Walton Centre’s approach to transformation and its governance between October 2022 and March 2023. The Challenge The Walton Centre had recently set up a Strategic Programme Management Office (SPMO) to align and coordinate larger-scale change programmes. They…

Over 20 million people in the UK have an MSK condition, which ranges from minor injuries to long term conditions. MSK conditions can affect your bones, joints, muscles, tendons, and the spine and are a leading cause of pain and…

November 2023

The NHS Transformation Unit were contracted to support the Physiological Measurements Network in Cheshire and Merseyside (C&M), with a primary focus on improving Echocardiography services. We worked across C&M to design and deliver the Echocardiography Recovery Plan for the C&M…

October 2023

In December 2022 NHSE England’s Cancer Programme required support to design and deliver an approach to help Cancer Alliances. Their focus was to understand the key ingredients to success and to identify their collective development needs. The TU were commissioned…

• Analytics (3)
• Business (0)
• Clinical Strategy & Redesign (5)
• Digital (3)
• Finance (1)
• Programme Management (6)
• Stakeholder Engagement (3)
• System Development (4)
• Workforce (4)

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Case studies

Covering lessons learned and personal experiences, these case studies provide an insight into the implementation, benefits and use of the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) across primary and secondary care.

Going 'e-referrals only' in a mental health trust

More than 90% of GP referrals into South West London and St. George's Mental Health NHS Trust are now sent using the NHS e-Referral Service.

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

This case study focuses on the successful implementation of the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) advice and guidance functionality at the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The trust is one of the largest providers of e-RS advice and guidance services in England.

Somerset NHS Foundation Trust: advice and guidance case study

Paediatrics was the first speciality to open e-RS advice and guidance in 2009, followed by an expansion across a range of specialities. The majority of services provide a 48 hour turnaround for advice and guidance.

York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust advice and guidance case study

York e-RS advice and guidance services are consultant-led, with the majority of consultants being based in York Hospital, but some providing advice and guidance from the nearby Scarborough General Hospital.

Imperial College Integration of clinical referral information

Imperial College Healthcare partnered with e-RS to maximise the full range of paper switch off benefits to reduce administrative costs and achieve quicker patient care through API integration.

Cutting waiting times using the e-RS Advice and Guidance channel

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust gastroenterology team reduced its patient waiting times by using the e-Referral Service (e-RS) to give gastroenterology advice and guidance to GPs

Earlier case studies

From 2018 we also published a series of primary care and secondary e-RS case studies.  These case studies are still available from the national archive. 

Archived case studies

Archived e-RS case studies which provided an insight into the earlier implementation of NHS e-RS across primary and secondary care.

Last edited: 10 July 2023 11:07 am

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Royal Bolton Hospital deploys Miya patient flow system

Digital transformation , news.

• 19 August 2024

• Bolton NHS Foundation Trust has deployed patient flow software from Alcidion to improve bed availability at Royal Bolton Hospital
• The software went live in May 2024 and provides digital 'journey boards' that help clinical teams track patient intake and discharge
• Miya Flow has been integrated with the Miya Observations platform to give clinicians greater visibility of patients’ vital signs and EWSs

Bolton NHS Foundation Trust has deployed a new patient flow system from Alcidion with the aim of boosting bed availability at the Royal Bolton Hospital.

The trust went live with Miya Flow at the end of May 2024 in an effort to improve transparency and efficiency around the intake, treatment and discharge of patients.

Alcidion’s system allows healthcare teams to view live bed status on a digital ‘journey board’, which also displays information such as ward capacity and patient admission status.

Dawn Devine, head of clinical systems at Bolton NHS FT, said:   “Staff have embraced Miya Flow which is supporting more timely movement of patients, and helping our teams as they do everything possible to ensure patients are in the most appropriate bed for them, and at the right time.

“This deployment represents a fundamental part of our plans to embed a control centre within the trust. More immediately it provides our teams with a visual way of tracking of patient flow, in a similar way that airports can track all their departures and arrivals. This will only help to enhance both patient experience and patient safety”.

Miya Flow is an evolution of the ExtraMed patient flow system that had been used at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust from 2007 up until Alcidion acquired UK software company ExtraMed in April 2021 for £5.3 million.

The trust also uses Miya Observations — previously known as Patientrack — to identify patients at risk of harm and deterioration. This has been integrated with Miya Flow to give clinical teams better visibility of patients’ vital signs and early warning scores.

Imran Khan, urgent care lead at Bolton NHS FT, said the implementation meant care teams were able to better map each patient’s treatment.

“Having one source of information to support patient flow, means a better, safer experience for patients and staff. I believe this will lead to significant time and cost savings, helping us to deliver of quality of care in a busy environment,” said Khan.

Paul Deffley, chief medical officer at Alcidion , added: “Finding ways to enable more efficient patient flow, and to reduce avoidable longer lengths of stay, is more important than ever in the NHS.

“For patients this maximises opportunities for prompt discharge, potentially reducing their exposure to clinical risks and supporting their independence at home”.

Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust became the first community trust to sign up to Miya Flow in April 2022.

Meanwhile, Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust went live with Altera Digital Health’s patient flow solution at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in March 2024.

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