Cheshire trusts face productivity issues following EPR go-live

Exclusive: Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and East Cheshire NHS Trust are experiencing challenges with outpatient productivity and reporting following the launch of a joint electronic patient record (EPR). The MEDITECH EPR went live on 14 June 2025, as part of the Digital Clinical System (DCS) transformation programme being delivered by the two trusts. However, in a Mid Cheshire Hospitals board paper published on 31 July 2025, Ian Moston, chief executive at the trust, confirmed that “there is still work to do to embed the system”. “In particular, there are challenges in returning some outpatient activity to its pre DCS levels of productivity and operation reporting remains a challenge with data quality issues being worked through,” he added. A spokesperson for both Mid Cheshire Hospitals and East Cheshire NHS trusts, told Digital Health News: “The joint introduction of the new DCS at both trusts is a major step forward that will deliver long-term benefits for patients and staff. “As with any significant change of this scale, there have been short-term challenges with outpatient productivity and reporting, largely linked to staff adapting to new workflows and the need to refine data quality. “We have robust plans in place to address these issues, including system improvements with close monitoring to ensure that data reliability and reporting capacity steadily improve. “Productivity is already beginning to recover, and we expect a steady return to pre-implementation levels over the coming months. “Our priority is to make sure this recovery is sustainable, and that the system fully delivers on its potential to improve patient care and efficiency across both trusts.” MEDITECH’S Expanse EPR brings together patients’ key information, including medical history, medications, diagnostics, imaging and test results. A spokesperson for MEDITECH told Digital Health News: “The trusts have been live on the platform for approximately two months, and we are currently working together on optimisation.” The trusts announced MEDITECH as the supplier of the joint EPR in July 2022 when the DCS programme launched. Other trusts to experience teething problems after implementing a new EPR include Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. Worcestershire Acute Hospitals flagged issues with the way that real time recording of observations from sepsis patients are captured on its EPR after deploying Altera Digital Health’s Sunrise EPR across its three hospital sites in 2023 onto adult inpatient wards, and into emergency departments in November 2024. Guy’s and St Thomas’ said in February 2025 that it was experiencing “a number of reporting issues linked to the implementation of the Epic EPR system”, following the launch of the £450 million system in October 2023. The current target set by NHS England is for all NHS trusts to have implemented an EPR system to the minimum standard by March 2026, backed by the £2bn Frontline Digitisation programme.