Elland based digital services provider celebrates 21 years of helping support NHS patient care in Calderdale

In the last few years alone, CHFT has spent in the region of £16m on digital health solutions to change the healthcare landscape in its hospitals and the services it provides, with many of the projects being landed by The Health Informatics Service (THIS) - a subsidiary of CHFT.

Digital health solutions delivered by Elland-based THIS for CHFT – which runs the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, Calderdale Royal Hospital, and associated services - have helped to contribute to its current status as a ‘digitally aspirant’ trust, taking it from 150th in a digital trust league table to being one of the most digitally mature trusts in the country.

Rob Birkett, The Health Informatics Service’s managing director of digital health, who has worked for the organisation almost all of its 21 years, says: “We are an information management and technology (IM&T) service to support healthcare organisations deliver better patient care. It’s what we’ve done from day one; look after infrastructure, business intelligence, IM&T, architecture, edge devices, software and so on. What we do now is the same thing, just on a more modern, bigger scale.”

As well as its host trust, THIS provides digital and IT services to health and care providers across the UK in primary, secondary and third sectors, particularly NHS health trusts, GP practices, laboratories, hospices, and not-for-profit healthcare organisations.

“We’re in a unique position in terms of delivering across an array of services and sectors. For example, we know as much about GP systems as we do about a radiology department. There aren’t many other organisations in that position,” adds Mr Birkett.

The Health Informatics Service first came to fruition following the merger of the Calderdale and Huddersfield acute hospital trusts, and what was then the Kirklees Health Authority. All three organisations had well established IT departments which were combined into one to create the Calderdale and Huddersfield Health Informatics Service 2001 – hence the anniversary.

However, the name didn’t change to THIS until 2006 when the Wakefield Health Informatics Service was merged with its Calderdale and Huddersfield counterpart.

One of the most recent innovations THIS has created for its host trust is a link between CHFT’s drug prescription system and its Electronic Patient Record (EPR). It is a first-of-type solution across the NHS, which has removed the need for duplicated tasks between two standalone systems.

It is also pioneering the use of predictive analytics to gauge the survival chances of hospital patients, enabling the trust to pinpoint trends and variations, as well as improve its ability to improve its clinical review process.

Another innovation is the use of voice recognition (VR) technology, which is being used at CHFT hospitals to reduce repetitive tasks surrounding the recording, checking and despatch of patients’ clinical notes and letters, freeing up more time to be devoted to patient care.

Much of the current innovation has been possible thanks to the installation of CHFT’s EPR, which was the biggest in Europe when it was built in 2017, the culmination of a four-year long project.

Mr Birkett says: “It’s been a great place to work all these years. It’s always been challenging; it’s offered opportunity and we’ve never stood still. The breadth of clients we work with means we get involved in new things every day.

“There is always something to learn, always something new coming in that surprises you, so you need to go and do some research and figure out what you are going do, no matter how long you have worked here.”

Another long-serving employee, Matt Hurl, Head of Professional Services, says: “We are very good with change. Over the 21 years, I have found the NHS operates in a cyclical way. So, when a new government takes office, we’re prepared for changes. But ultimately for us, it is about getting the right information to the right clinical people at the right time to support the patient. All we have ever done is try to support the technical enablement of that.”

His colleague Jeannette Law, Head of Support Services, adds: “Our success is very much about the people. We have some exceptional people that go above and beyond on a daily basis, and they never complain. They get their head down, they get on with it, they work over and above their hours sometimes because they believe in what they’re doing, and they believe in working for the NHS.”

The Health Informatics Service (THIS) is a well-established, innovative and award-winning digital healthcare and IT specialist.

It is the only NHS informatics service to hold three ISO standards of ISO9001 (Quality Management), ISO20000 (Service Management) and ISO27001 (Security). It was also the first to gain Informatics Skills Development Network (ISDN) accreditation in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

Based in Elland, it works with public, private and charitable health and care organisations across the UK and Ireland. It is hosted by Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust.

It has over 230 expert staff leading and helping the digital transformation of primary, secondary and third sector care. Being linked to the NHS, its deep knowledge of public healthcare systems and values are unrivalled and its digital healthcare services have played a key role in the Covid-19 pathology testing and vaccine roll-out.