Problem

In 2021, Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, as part of their Digital Aspirant journey, asked Ethical Healthcare to support them explore the organisation’s readiness to embark on an Electronic Patient Record deployment, recognising that this would require a step-change in their use of clinical information systems to support the delivery of health and care.

Approach

Ethical brought together a team with clinical, technical, programme management and change management expertise to help them understand whether they could undertake a major digital transformation programme within current resources and what might be required in the future to embark on the next stages of their ambition.

Ethical associates worked closely with the in-house team at Airedale, engaging with a wide range of stakeholders across the Trust, including board-level, executive and digital teams.

Impact

Using tried and tested models and sensitive engagement techniques, our expert team gained an honest understanding of the Trust’s capacity and capability to embark on transformational change and made recommendations for the Trust’s existing digital work programme. In addition, the team provided an assessment of the skills, resources and technical infrastructure needed in the future. All of this work contributed to an outline business case for a future EPR.

Ethical Healthcare brought together an experienced team with hands-on experience of what it means to deliver digital transformation in the modern NHS. Their practical insights helped us to better understand our current capabilities and they made credible recommendations to help drive forward our ambitions and contribute to concrete next steps plans. Paul Rice | Chief Digital and Information Officer for Airedale NHS Foundation Trust and Bradford Teaching Hospitals