Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS) has deployed technology that allows healthcare professionals to proactively manage patient referrals and deliver care more efficiently out in the community. The deployment of Cayder's Patient Flow Management System supports a county-wide acute admissions reductions programme, which includes a focus on pro-active care, case management and early intervention to avert crisis and keep patients in the most appropriate care setting. The programme also responds in part to the significant growth in the number of people over the age of 85 in Lincolnshire.

Following a successful pilot programme to automate their paper-based pre-operative assessment process within the orthopaedic outpatient clinic, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) has signed a five year contract with Caradigm to deploy its solutions trust-wide. The pilot used the Caradigm Intelligence Platform and self-service kiosks to collect pre-op assessment data from clinicians and patients.

Software Europe, the provider of online expenses, contract and workflow management, has ended 2013 on a record high, adding 29 new clients in its third quarter. 28 of those clients are NHS providers. The new deals mean that Software Europe now administers over £65 million pounds of expenses to over 600,000 NHS employees across the UK. Software Europe's cloud-based Expenses Health product has been chosen in the third quarter by, amongst others, Devon Partnership NHS Trust, Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust.

A third of Scotland's NHS health boards can now view more comprehensive information about their patients' condition, treatment and choices following the integration of the Key Information Summary (KIS) with their clinical portal. The integration will enable organisations that are part of Scotland's South-East Consortium which includes NHS Lothian, NHS Dumfries and Galloway, NHS Fife, and NHS Borders to improve communication between primary, secondary and out of hours care and enable key information and patient wishes to be more easily and quickly available to the appropriate healthcare professional.

By Andy Clegg, Clinical Specialist, Orion Health
Integrating health and social care has been on the national agenda for over 20 years and despite the introduction of various policies, strategies and initiatives to deliver it, we are still not there yet. The well-documented drivers for joining up health and social care, such as capacity issues in acute hospitals and people living longer, is resulting in a situation which is unsustainable, meaning the way we deliver care should change in a radical way.

RaySearch Laboratories AB (publ.) has been awarded a contract to supply its RayStation® treatment planning system (TPS) to Tayside Cancer Centre, Ninewells Hospital & Medical School in Dundee, UK. Ninewells will be the first clinical installation of RayStation® in the United Kingdom. Ninewells Hospital & Medical School is one of the largest teaching hospitals in Europe. It has a comprehensive regional cancer centre serving the Tayside region of Scotland.

Twenty-one leading healthcare organisations have joined a formal partnership to tackle the nation’s healthcare challenges by accelerating growth in the digital healthcare market. Founded and led by D Health, the partnership known as ‘the Catalyst’ involves major brands Celisio (owners of Lloyds Pharmacy) and Johnson and Johnson's LifeScan. Other founding members include SMEs such as Isansys, Grey Matters and Cardio QT and healthcare providers Red House Practice Group, Just Checking and Physiomedics.