South Tyneside and Sunderland to lead NHS digital transformation

South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust is to become a ‘fast follower’ in City Hospitals Sunderland’s digital footsteps.

Speaking at NHS Expo last week, Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, confirmed a further 18 organisations across the NHS who will work with existing trusts who are already delivering through digital technology and information flows.

The ‘fast follower’ status for South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust has been made possible due to its close partnership working as part of the Healthcare Group and ongoing work to transform clinical services across South Tyneside and Sunderland.

South Tyneside will partner with City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust which was chosen by NHS England as one of 16 Global Digital Exemplars (GDEs) in September last year.

As part of its role as a GDE, City Hospitals Sunderland will be developing a blueprint to transform its digital systems and become paper-free. It has already implemented a fully integrated electronic health record across the trust, which has greatly enhanced patient safety, outcomes, quality and organisational efficiency.

The ‘fast follower’ status will now allow the Healthcare Group to build on the work already underway in Sunderland and develop a single IT solution across both trusts.

Ken Bremner, chief executive of South Tyneside and Sunderland Healthcare Group, said: “This is fantastic news for South Tyneside District Hospital and for our community teams and means we can accelerate learning from Sunderland to develop world class digital systems that will benefit patients in South Tyneside for many years to come.

“For over 25 years we’ve recognised the critical role that technology now plays in delivering world-class healthcare services and in Sunderland
we have set the bar in terms of investing in
our digital footprint to improve the quality of patient care. Our new Emergency Department is
now completely paper-free at the point of care and uses technology that can move around with the patient.

“As a group, we can now build on this success to further transform our digital capabilities in South Tyneside and the ‘fast follower’ status is testimony of what can be achieved with the two trusts working together.”