[East Anglia, UK] Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust has appointed the first Chief Clinical Information Officer (CCIO) to help drive use of digital technology and information, improving outcomes for patients.
Dr Toral Thomas, Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at the trust, has now taken over the new role. He will be focusing on improving the use of the Electronic Patient Record system and extending e-Prescribing services.
In their latest report, Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors said the trust should further review the ‘performance’ of the EPR in order to ensure all employees have access to medical records:
“When we last inspected the trust in July 2016 they had introduced a new electronic records system. We were very concerned about the performance of this system. Since then the trust had undertaken various improvement initiatives and some progress had been made.
“However, at this inspection we observed that it remained difficult to establish a contemporaneous record of patient care in some services. We also observed that technical problems with the system, particularly in community services, meant staff could not always access records.
“We acknowledge the trust had attempted to resolve these issues but we remained concerned about the risks to safe patient care.”
Dr Bohdan Solomka, Medical Director, said the development of the new CCIO role ‘directly responds’ to concerns previously raised by the CQC:
“Toral will focus on what we can to do help our frontline clinicians use technology to improve the quality of everything we do and the care which our patients receive.
“He will act as a conduit between the IT team and our frontline clinicians, who use the systems every day, and will feedback their views on our current systems as well as ideas for improvements.”
Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust is the seventh largest mental health trust in the UK, providing services for adults and children across Norfolk and Suffolk.
Dr Thomas said: “The technology will not replace the kindness and dedicated service we provide, but will hopefully serve to enhance it.
“In my new role I want to help take the great ideas which staff have on the clinical frontline forward and find ways to share some of the fantastic practice that happens every day throughout our Trust.”
