Residents and care professionals across Swindon and Wiltshire are set to have a new digital integrated care record to join up care across the region. Following a procurement process, the local clinical commissioning group has awarded the contract to Graphnet to deliver its leading CareCentric shared record software.
CareCentric is already consolidating care records in neighbouring Bath and North East Somerset and this care record will be widened to include the organisations and populations of the Swindon and Wiltshire localities. The clinical commissioning groups merged in April 2020 to form the Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire CCG. When the deployment is complete the shared record will serve a population of 934,000.
The extensive programme will bring together health and care records from 94 general practices, Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust, Wiltshire Health & Care, Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust, Swindon Borough Council, Wiltshire Council, Bath and North East Somerset Council, Medvivo, Virgin Care and Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.
The shared record solution will facilitate the secure, reliable and timely sharing of health and social care records between care professionals. This information would traditionally have been shared by fax, letter, email, phone and multiple IT systems.
Staff working at different health and care organisations involved in an individual’s care will be able to use the new integrated record to securely access relevant information about that individual from within their local system using single sign-on. Having the information readily available supports professionals to make quicker and more effective decisions about a person’s care.
For people living in Swindon and Wiltshire it will mean having to spend less time repeating the same information to different care professionals and more time progressing the care they receive.
If an individual is seeing a professional in a clinical setting, the care record will help to reduce assessments and tests because clinicians will be able to see more information about a person’s condition, which may have previously caused treatment delays due to a lack of information.
Jason Young, assistant director of digital transformation at Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire CCG explained that the benefits of joined-up care for a population do not end there. “Health and care professionals who work across the BSW area will soon have easier access to the information they need to care for those who use our services. This will support improvements to care and help our services be as efficient as possible.”
Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire CCG will also be adopting Graphnet’s population health platform across its care economy to understand the region’s current and future, health and care needs so proactive action can be taken to tailor better care and support for residents.
Brian Waters, CEO at Graphnet said, “We are excited to be supporting BSW CCG on its record sharing journey. We are also looking forward to helping the whole of Bath, North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire develop its population health agenda and use the information held in the shared record to help plan, manage and improve services for people in the area.”
