Ashford and St Peter’s and Royal Surrey Hospitals join forces to deliver patient-centric digital innovation, Surrey Safe Care | News

The local hospitals are working together to implement an electronic patient record solution setting the scene for joined up care across the county.

Surrey Safe Care 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 and efficiency 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: 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; 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, said: “We are delighted to be embarking on the journey to transform our services. 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. Cerner has been a pioneer in healthcare technology since 1979 and is well-positioned to afford us with everything we could need in a technology provider to realise our vision.”

The implementation of Surrey Safe Care involves a major, digitally-enabled transformational change and is expected to be fully embedded by the end of 2021.