Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust rolls out CLEO EPS with great benefits
Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has rolled out CLEO EPS to enable prescriptions to be sent electronically to patients’ nominated pharmacies. The introduction of the system has transformed a previously paper-based process and means that patients, who can be located across the UK, don’t have to be posted prescriptions or drive back to the hospital to collect them.
Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge is the UK’s leading heart and lung hospital, delivering 130,000 episodes of care for patients each year. CLEO EPS is an electronic prescribing solution which provides quick, seamless prescribing and enables prescriptions to be entered and sent electronically to a pharmacy of the patient's choice.
As the digital medicines team at Royal Papworth support a small, highly specialised tertiary service, they chose to implement CLEO EPS in a targeted way: prioritising the clinical services and patient groups where the solution would deliver the greatest benefit. Many patients live a considerable distance from the hospital and are therefore followed up through telephone appointments. For some, long-term prescribing is required as part of their ongoing care.
The Trust adopted a phased implementation, with initial rollout focused on specialist services including respiratory, sleep services and transplant services. Transplant patients in particular benefit, because many live significant distances from Royal Papworth.
As the team supports a growing number of patients via telephone appointments and continues to prescribe long term for some patients, these factors made electronic prescribing particularly valuable as patients often require ongoing specialist care without frequent visits to the hospital.
CLEO EPS is delivering significant benefits for patients by improving access to medicines, reducing unnecessary journeys to the hospital and better supporting remote outpatient care. These advantages are particularly valuable for transplant patients and other specialist cohorts, many of whom travel long distances to receive treatment at Royal Papworth.
Chris McCorquodale is Deputy Chief Pharmacist and Chief Pharmaceutical Information Officer and worked with his team and the CLEO Systems team to implement the solution. He says: “This has been a really successful rollout. Clinicians are now actively asking to use CLEO EPS, which speaks volumes about how well it has been received.
“Clinicians have found the system intuitive and straightforward to use and, because staff were already using NHS smartcards, logging in is quick and familiar. Prescribers from a variety of clinical backgrounds have commented on how easy the solution is to pick up.
“The pharmacy team has experienced significant operational improvements. Before implementing CLEO EPS, prescriptions often had to be printed, packaged and sent by tracked post, with some deliveries costing around £10 each. Pharmacy staff also spent considerable time preparing parcels, recording and tracking deliveries, managing paper FP10 prescriptions and reconciling prescription forms. Much of this administrative workload has now been removed, reducing both costs and the time spent on manual processes across pharmacy and clinical teams."
A consultant user says: “CLEO EPS has been of huge benefit to our patients. Previously we either had to add extra work onto our GP colleagues to prescribe or send medication out to patients which introduced a significant delay - often for treatment that really needs to be started promptly. CLEO means that we can now advise people regarding what antibiotics they need for their infection and ensure that they get the medication quickly and can pick it up from somewhere local to them. This has been transformative and means we aren't unnecessarily adding to the burden of work in primary care.”
