Only half of trusts’ staff were trained ahead of troubled IT go-live

Only half of staff across two acute trusts were fully trained in the use of a new electronic patient record before its introduction, which led to disruption and patient harm, HSJ has revealed.

The implementation of Oracle Cerner’s EPR at Royal Surrey Foundation Trust and Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals FT was carried out, despite the trusts not having achieved their target of 80% of staff having completed the necessary training, newly disclosed documents show.

HSJ has also seen an internal report by the Royal Surrey’s informatics team which warned of risks to patient safety and data problems, unless preparations improved in the three months leading up to go-live. 

The two acute trusts implemented the EPR in May last year under a programme called Surrey Safe Care, but there have been multiple problems ever since – including some of the issues that the internal report warned of.  

The trusts acknowledged the process had been “challenging” but said they had trained a higher proportion of the staff who were working in the two weeks after go-live, with Royal Surrey describing the findings of the internal informatics report as an “inaccurate representation” of readiness.

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Source: HSJ, 13 December 2023