Annual Members' Meeting 2021

Strategic Objective 4: Digital

Using digital technology and innovations to improve clinical pathways, safety and efficiency, and empower patients.

Our key achievements over the last year are:

Surrey Safe Care

Surrey Safe Care is the collaborative organisational, transformation programme which will introduce our new Electronic Patient Record across ASPH and Royal Surrey Foundation Trust.

Surrey Safe Care is designed to transform the way in which we deliver care, enabling an exceptional healthcare experience for patients and teams that is regionally integrated and personally delivered.

The deployment of the fully-integrated system involves a major digitally-enabled transformational change programme that will engage and touch every part of both Trusts, impacting and engaging with colleagues at all levels.

• Deliver a better experience of care for our patients
• Supporting our teams to deliver the best care possible
• Reduce treatment delays
• Reduce medication errors
• Reducing healthcare acquired infections

The latest event in the programme was a week-long Workflow Safety Check and Showcase (Future State Validation). The Showcase was an exciting series of over 80 interactive virtual sessions designed to demonstrate and ‘safety check’ the new workflows within Surrey Safe Care. Each session was targeted to specific services and allowed staff members to review and highlight any safety concerns or critical issues before signing off Surrey Safe Care system ready for testing and training.

The event was a fantastic engagement opportunity for colleagues to see their new way of working, which was reflected in the phenomenal number of bookings easily surpassing 4,000 across the week. The showcase was a great success and acts as a crucial part of the assurance process so we can be confident in knowing that Surrey Safe Care will be safe, secure and fit-for-purpose.

Enabling Remote Working

Due to the pandemic and the government restrictions that were put in place, the Trust had to quickly enable nearly 1000 additional staff to work from home within a short timeframe. Because of manufacturing in the Far East slowing down and increased demand from organisations, the waiting time for laptops were 12-18 weeks, with some suppliers having no stock at all.

The Trust had to find a creative solution that could be implement relatively quickly, secure by design and cost effective compared to laptops. We learned about a new technology called Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) from Microsoft which we were able roll out within weeks and meet all requirements.

The solution allows staff to use their own devices at home to easily access a familiar Trust ‘desktop’, complete with required applications and the ability to use smartcards and dictaphones. We are continuing to provide this solution and hope to adopt it as a permanent part of our remote working infrastructure.

Cyber Security and Data Security

Our Trust relies on data systems which are fundamental to patient care so it is really important that we do everything possible to mitigate the risk of cyber attacks. With digital platforms for the delivery of patient care accelerating due to the pandemic, we launched an extensive cyber security and data campaign to remind colleagues of their responsibilities when handling, storing and transferring information safely, securely and in an appropriate way.