North Bristol to review Cerner problems

North Bristol NHS Trust will review what went wrong with the deployment of Cerner Millennium once issues with it have been fixed.

Trust chief executive Ruth Brunt called for a review at the latest board meeting, which received an update on the go-live of the electronic patient record system.

EHealth Insider reported last month that North Bristol staff had gone back to paper to process some outpatient appointments as the trust worked to fix issues with the implementation.

A board paper says that although 65 wards, the emergency department and two minor injuries units went live with only “expected” issues, there have been problems in theatres and outpatient clinics.

In outpatients, “incorrect configuration of clinic lists and data migration of existing appointments” led to problems with the interaction between the new software and Choose and Book.

This led to some patients receiving the wrong appointment dates, no confirmation or cancellation letters being sent, and patients being booked into incorrect clinics.

According to a local newspaper report confirmed by the trust, IM&T director Martin Bell told the board that if he had known the problems it would cause, the trust would not have gone live with Millennium last December.

The update says the trust is now planning to “re-launch” the system in outpatients next week.

A more recent update from the trust says that as of 3 February, 90% of outpatient clinics are using and processing appointments via the EPR.

“Our aim is for 100% of clinics to be processing appointments via the new system by the middle of February,” it says.

“Our outpatient clinics will then be in a position to effectively use the new electronic records system and we anticipate a further transition period for those clinics.”

“These issues have caused disruption and frustration for our patients and our staff and we recognise that this has not delivered the level of service that we expect, and the public expect, from us.”