Liverpool iPM glitch overbooks some clinics

Problems with a new iSoft iPM patient administration system left some patients at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust arriving for appointments that staff could no longer find records of having been made.

The problems appear to relate issues with migrating appointment data from the trust’s old PAS system leading to appointment details not appearing on the new iSoft PAS.

The system, which was launched by local service provider Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) on 7 July, saw cancelled appointments not appearing on the system, resulting in clerks overbooking outpatient clinics, including those for orthopaedics.

One frustrated relative told E-Health Insider how his parent had shown up to outpatients for a blood test ahead of an operation the hospital had subsequently moved, without rescheduling the initial blood test appointment. “People were turning up in out patients with letters for appointments the hospital had no record of.”

Problems affected both the Royal Liverpool and the Broadgreen hospital sites. A spokesperson said these were due to “a few glitches which are to be expected with a new system.”

The spokesperson added: “We believe this has only affected a handful of people, and we have technical experts investigating and rectifying the problems.”

Records of about 4m patients have been transferred on to the new PAS and over 4,000 staff have been through an extensive training programme.

Alison Dailly, the trust’s director of information, said: “The new system will be a big improvement for us – it records activity in our hospitals in real time which means we can give patients up-to-date information and respond to their enquiries much more accurately. It also means that we can reduce waits because it works with other system we have in place to reduce paperwork and delays in transferring patient details between departments.”

She added: “Since 7 July we have seen 6,448 patients in Accident and Emergency, 24,753 patients in out patients and have had 3,560 admissions. There have been some teething problems with a handful of outpatient clinic appointments being overbooked. The trust is currently working to ensure that patients continue to receive the best possible care and we are delighted that overall our services are running well.”