Information Management and Technology

The IM&T team is responsible for all of the Trust's clinical, administrative and information systems along with the extensive infrastructure on which the system runs, as well as the hospital Switchboard and the Health Records department.

The Trust has a reputation as one of the most progressive in the country in the way it continues to extend the Trust's systems for the benefit of patients, staff and partners across the health community.

The hospital has a robust and highly integrated system so the electronic patient record is available to clinicians throughout the patient's treatment and the IM&T department supports over 2,000 PCs and laptops, many operating wirelessly.

"The Trust has a reputation as one of the most progressive in the country, supporting over 2,000 PCs and laptops in the process."

 IM&T BCS & Computing UK IT Industry Awards Finalist 2011

The hospital has a robust and highly integrated system so the electronic patient record is available to clinicians throughout the patient's treatment. Radiology and pathology tests are ordered and reported electronically, GP referrals are sent and received electronically, and diagnostic results are also viewable in GP surgeries.

The department supports over 2,000 PCs and laptops, many operating wirelessly.

Of particular note, some of the Trust's IM&T achievements include:-

• Being selected by Connecting for Health as the first Trust in the North West to go live with Picture Archiving Communications System (PACS), delivering a solution that has dramatically reduced X-ray turnaround times, allowing doctors to see results much sooner
• Speech recognition system being introduced whereby Radiologists dictate reports on-line for immediate translation into the electronic patient record, further reducing turnaround times
• A Facility implemented to issue Discharge Summaries at point of discharge from hospital so that GPs and patients have a record of their visit to facilitate their ongoing treatment
• Choose & Book solutions in place that allow patients to book hospital outpatient appointments directly from their GP surgery, through a national help-line or via the Internet
• Information substantially enhanced to ensure clinicians and managers are able to monitor performance in line with the government's 18-week referral-to-treatment target
• Community Midwives equipped with mobile computing solutions to allow them to securely access and input patient information without having to come into the hospital
• Members of the department invited to speak at national and regional events on the Trust's use of technology to achieve real benefits for its patients and staff

The Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust consists of a 600 bedded large district General Hospital, which provides its services on the Countess of Chester Health Park, and a 64 bedded Intermediate Care Service at Ellesmere Port Hospital. The Trust has almost 4,000 staff and provides a range of medical services to more than 445,000 patients per year from an areas covering Western Cheshire, Ellesmere Port, Neston and North Wales.

The Countess of Chester Hospital has an excellent reputation for delivering high quality patient care and is nationally accredited at the highest levels in many areas, in particular those relating to clinical outcomes and patient safety.

Our aim is to be the preferred hospital of choice for our traditional community, and a preferred hospital of choice for patients from a wider area, and to continue to provide a comprehensive, high quality, and accessible range of emergency and elective services to all our patients. We want our patients to be assured that they will receive their care as rapidly as possible in a first-class environment, be treated with courtesy and dignity, and be confident that the outcome of their clinical care will be of the highest standards and safety.

• View our CQC Statement of Purpose document here (192kb)

Our strategic vision

As you will know, the NHS is facing some tough times and the Countess is no different. To meet these challenges, the Trust's three year strategic vision is "to transform our services to deliver the highest quality, safest patient care through committed and capable people."

The Trust has established six key strategic objectives to achieve our vision:

• We will strive for excellence in the quality of care and patient experience and reduce the incidence of harm
• We will transform the way we deliver services by maximising our operational efficiency and productivity and exploiting new technologies
• We will work closely with our partners to create better care pathways for patients
• We will live our values and work with and develop our staff to continuously improve our services
• We will ensure our continued financial viability and get better value for money for every £ we spend
• We will meet all the standards and targets of our regulators and commissioners

The Trust's Key Achievements

• The Trust won the prestigious 40Top Hospitals Award for eleven years in succession, one of only 5 Trusts in the country to achieve this status.
• 18,000 (4.2%) more patients were treated at the Countess compared to the previous year.
• We reduced the incidence of MRSA by 50% and Clostridium Difficile by 62%, and achieved full and unconditional compliance with the Healthcare Commissions Hygiene Code.
• All key English and Welsh waiting times and cancer targets were met.
• The Trust won Project of the Year in the Lean Healthcare Academy Awards 2010 and were shortlisted as a finalist for the Health Service Journal Awards.
• The Trust invested £6.1m in improving the physical infrastructure and environment of the hospital and increasing capacity. This included a new £1.2m building to provide an Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) service.
• Public membership has increased to over 11,400 Trust members.

Dylan Williams - Director of IM&T

Has overall responsibility for the Trust's IM&T operations. The directorate comprises of three departments working very closely with one another.

Monique Duffy-Brogan - Assistant Director, Planning & Development

• Systems development and support
• Trust-wide clinical systems user training
• IM&T projects and programme planning including NPfIT
• Web development and document management
• Risk management and business continuity planning

Rob Howorth - Assistant Director, Information Services

• Information Management
• Performance management systems
• Clinical reporting
• Clinical Coding
• Information Governance, Caldicott & Data Protection
• Health Records Department

Mike Inness - Assistant Director, Service Delivery & Telecomms

• Infrastructure development and support
• Computer and network operations
• Telecomms (including the Switchboard)
• Technical Support including the Service Desk
• IT security and disaster recovery

Responsible for ensuring that half a million patient case note files that complement the electronic patient records are kept up to date and readily available to clinicians when they see patients.

Other work and projects currently in progress include:-

• Text message and Email alerts to remind participating patients of pending appointments
• Touchscreen solution to provide patients with a self-service check-in facility
• Bar-coded wristbands to assist patient identification
• RFID capability to help track and locate valuable equipment
• Re-launch of the Trust website with much improved content and navigation

Additional Information

Follow the below links for more information about the Trusts IM&T department.

Mission, Objectives, Strategies & Tactics (Word document which opens in a new window)

Overview of Hospitals Computer Systems (Powerpoint document which opens in a new window).

NHS Connecting for Health website www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk  (External website which opens in a new window).