Ashford and St Peter’s and Royal Surrey Hospitals join forces to deliver patient-centric digital innovation, Surrey Safe Care.
From Monday 16 May, Ashford and St Peter’s and Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trusts are launching a new electronic patient record system – known as Surrey Safe Care, setting the scene for joined up care across the county.
The system consists of a series of software applications that bring together and digitalise clinical and administrative data to replace paper-based records. The system, provided by Cerner Corporation UK, will improve processes and increase safety, efficiency and experience for patients.
Together, the two Trusts serve a population of approximately 800,000 people across six sites and a wider population of 1.3m for cancer services. A shared system will bring a number of benefits for patients and the teams. Healthcare professionals from both organisations will gain immediate access to information about patients’ care and treatments irrespective of where it was received, resulting in a more coordinated approach to effective and consistent care. In addition to this, clinicians will be able to use the platform to make informed, data-driven decisions while ensuring patient confidentiality is safeguarded through the strongest national and international security measures for handling information.
Simon Marshall, Senior Responsible Officer for Surrey Safe Care and Director of Finance and Information at Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals said:
“The implementation of Surrey Safe Care involves a major, digitally-enabled transformational change and a huge volume of work has gone into getting the two Trusts prepared and ready to launch. By working together, we have the capability to share resources and skillset between the two organisations. This is an opportunity to collaboratively redesign pathways to deliver the highest possible quality of care for our patients.”
Louise Stead, Chief Executive of Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust said:
“I am very excited for our teams to see the benefits of our brilliant new electronic patient record and am confident that it will improve our processes and experience for patients. Like any new system, it will take a while to iron out the wrinkles. However, I am sure that our community will be as supportive as ever during this time of transition and understand that we are always trying our hardest to deliver the best, most efficient care we can.”
The changeover to the new system will begin on Thursday 12 May and we would greatly appreciate the support and patience of patients, relatives, and visitors as we get used to this new way of working. There may be some delays when coming to our hospitals whilst we transfer over, but we will do all that we can to ensure that there is minimal disruption. Thank you to our partners and local community for your ongoing support.