As you may know, the Government has recently launched their 10 Year Health Plan for England. One of the main areas of focus is how we can use digital technology to improve the working lives of our doctors and nurses, and the teams that support patient care and give patients better access to their information.
To support this, we have been working across Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals NHS Group (LCHG) to implement some big changes – these include implementing an electronic record for all the information relating to your healthcare.
This record will make it much easier for your GP to be able to see what care you have received at a hospital as well as making that information available in tools like the NHS APP. We already have this information in our communities so having this for our hospitals will give a fuller view of all your care.
Another new change we are looking to introduce is our new electronic menus for our patients who have a stay in hospital. This new menu will include photographs and allow patients to see the food we have available before they make their selection and will help us to flag any allergies and special dietary requirements. It will also support us to reduce our food waste and streamline the process for ordering ingredients. This means we can take care of our patients, whilst reducing costs, which is more environmentally friendly and therefore supports our Green Plan.
Over recent months we have been working on digitising the records for our pregnant patients and will soon launch BadgerNotes; an application that allows expectant patients to access all the details of their prenatal and antenatal maternity care. This covers community appointments as well as hospital visits and is part of the drive to help patients access their own information to support care themselves.
As we make these improvements, we are ensuring that our patients can access these new systems and have the support they need. This might be making sure patients can access equipment or by providing some learning to support their access.
As the Executive Director responsible for digital change and innovation I am ensuring we focus on the biggest benefits that will improve care for our patients.
I’m really pleased that LCHG are ahead of target for meeting the 10 Year Health Plan for England and that we are using this opportunity to make changes that benefit our staff and patients.