New information system for mental health trust

Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, which runs mental health care in Rochdale, has ordered a Data Warehouse solution to support its progress towards a full reporting system for Mental Healthcare activity.

The system will bring together data from multiple sources, including referrals, community activity, inpatient and outpatient activity, review records and caseload data, in order to supply mental health trust managers with the information they need to make informed clinical and management decisions.

Pennine Care is one of only four Trusts nationally to be involved in defining the basis for extending Payment by Results into the Mental Health area.

Gary Ferguson, sales manager at Ardentia, who are providing the system, said: “Pennine Care will bring its own special perspective to this work, in particular in the definition of patient clusters and packages of care. This will be invaluable for defining effective methods of analysis and evaluation, as well as preparing for exciting developments in the financial management of mental healthcare.

“We are delighted by the vote of confidence that Pennine Care has given us, and feel that this group of Mental Health Trusts - supported by our information services – will be particularly well placed to address the challenges ahead.”