UPMC team displaces Royal Berks staff

Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust has handed redundancy notices to its entire electronic patient record team as it prepares to implement a Cerner system with University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre.

The 26 staff on the team have been told that their present roles no longer exist and that they will have to compete for 19 one year, fixed term contracts, three of which are reserved for nurses.

Meanwhile, E-Health Insider understands that 45 people will be brought in from UPMC, with which the trust signed a contract in June.

A contact with knowledge of the situation said: “The whole team were called into a meeting and handed a printed letter and told that their current roles no longer exist and their jobs are now at risk.

“Everybody is angry and just can’t believe what is happening. When we heard the news about the UPMC partnership, we thought the hospital would be employing more people – not making people redundant.”

In a statement, the trust said: “The project will require us to work in very different ways – throughout the implementation period and beyond – if we are to deliver the high level of patient benefits that we have identified.

“The current IT teams are being consulted regarding an interim structure to help deliver the first stages of the EPR.

"Our priority is to use the existing skills within the team to fill these new roles, or to find alternative roles within the trust for the individuals involved. The structure will continue to evolve as the project moves ahead.”

Royal Berkshire broke away from the National Programme for IT in the NHS to do the deal with UPMC, which is already delivering a Cerner system to Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

It said it could not wait for the national programme, which has been without a local service provider for the South cluster since Fujitsu exited in May 2008.

In its statement, the trust said clinical and non-clinical staff from the trust would work alongside the UPMC team “who will bring with them vast experience of implementing such systems elsewhere.”

It claimed this would be an “excellent opportunity for our staff to become informatics specialists in this field” and that it would “continue to work with the individuals to apply for roles in the new structure or elsewhere within the trust.”