Computer system – “lessons had been learned”, says RBH

The hospital spent £28.5m on the Cerner Millenium Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system, of which £16.6m was spent on expert IT help.
The system was meant to retrieve patient details in seconds, but staff complained that it kept crashing, which meant that staff had to spend up to 15 minutes navigating through multiple screens to book one routine appointment.
The £16.6m had been used to pay for more than 200 consultants since the system was implemented in 2009, and a team of 40 consultants are still working on the project.
Hospital spokesman Joe Wise said: “Over the five-year development and implementation of the Electronic Patient Record, the trust has invested in the expertise and experience required to successfully commission and deliver the new digital record.
“The implementation depended heavily on contractors with a high degree of specialist knowledge and recent experience of implementing what is a significant and vast change programme for any organisation.
“The trust has already acknowledged that there are lessons to be learnt from both the development and implementation.
“At present, we continue to employ a number of interim staff who are essential in supporting us in this work to ensure that staff can continue to deliver high-quality care to our patients when using the system, and the trust can depend upon the information provided by the system to monitor clinical standards and ensure it is paid for the work it undertakes.
“We are currently working with Cerner and our staff to make the best use of this system.
“Our commitment remains to delivering a successful, cost- effective digital record system that continues to support us in delivering the best possible care for our patients.”