Community nurses equipped with digital care system

Chief Executive Michael McCourt with Shelley Harrison (left) and Sam Kerr (right) from Woodside A district nursing team in Middleton

Local community nurses are now equipped with a new electronic patient record system that it is said will help to streamline processes, improve the quality of patient information available, and reduce paperwork.

The services are the latest to be set up on the system, known as Paris, which is being rolled out across all community and mental health services run by Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust during a two-year project.

The Trust’s children’s community nursing teams were the first to start using the system at the end of 2013. Nurses were trained and issued with mobile tablet devices to allow them to access Paris at the point of care, whilst working with a patient. This means that they no longer have to use paper-based systems and will not have to return to base to update a patient’s record, freeing up more time to deliver patient care.

The adult community health teams joined the children’s nursing teams when they went live last week.

Sam Kerr, a District Nursing Sister in Middleton, said: “The system is quite different from what we’re used to so it took a bit of navigating. The training we’ve had was brilliant and it’s clear the system is going to be hugely beneficial and will help us be more efficient, giving us more time to care for patients.”

Pennine Care Chief Executive, Michael McCourt, went to visit the teams a few days after the launch to see how things were progressing. He said: “Getting used to a new system such as Paris is not always an easy journey but the end goal makes it worthwhile. We appreciate the time and effort all staff are putting in to get used to this new way of working.

"The roll-out of Paris is a sizeable project but is part of Pennine Care’s commitment to delivering the best possible patient care. It will transform the way we work and have a significant positive impact for those who access our community and mental health services. ”

Pennine Care selected Paris as its preferred clinical information system following a procurement exercise involving more than 100 clinical staff from mental health and community services.