Catherine McDonald, deputy chief govt officer and chief technique officer at Blackpool Instructing Hospitals NHS Basis Belief (Credit score: Blackpool Instructing Hospitals NHS FT)
Blackpool Instructing Hospitals NHS Basis Belief is experiencing knowledge validation points that might delay affected person care, following migration to a brand new affected person administration system (PAS).
Because the improve to the most recent IMS MAXIMS PAS in June 2025, the belief has reported “areas the place knowledge has been delayed or is presently unavailable” based on a board paper, revealed on 4 September 2025.
It provides that the emergency division knowledge backlog “highlights the necessity for strong contingency planning throughout digital transitions”.
Andrew Roach, chair of the Finance and Efficiency Committee at Blackpool Instructing Hospitals, stated within the board assembly that the PAS migration has “precipitated knowledge validation points, notably affecting referral to remedy (RTT) metrics and affected person pathways”, that are compromising “the accuracy of efficiency reporting and should delay affected person care as a result of knowledge inconsistencies”.
RTT is the method for managing a affected person’s journey from the preliminary referral by a GP or different clinician to the beginning of their first consultant-led remedy, which have to be accomplished inside 18 weeks.
The Finance and Efficiency Committee instructed board members that “a daily assembly is happening between the info providers group in enterprise intelligence and the earnings group in finance to establish any points with the dataset and feed these into the PAS provider for modification”.
Catherine McDonald, deputy chief govt officer and chief technique officer at Blackpool Instructing Hospitals instructed Digital Well being Information that the belief’s legacy PAS system, additionally offered by IMS MAXIMS didn’t include RTT performance and was managed and tracked outdoors of the system, whereas it’s auto calculated within the new system.
“In June this 12 months Blackpool Instructing Hospitals stated goodbye to a PAS which was first launched in 1992 and migrated to a brand new system known as IMS MAXIMS, which the belief has been utilizing within the Emergency Division since 2017.
“The brand new and outdated system performance may be very completely different nevertheless there are strong techniques in place for figuring out and fixing any errors that happen.
“Most significantly the brand new system has improved knowledge high quality, effectivity and knowledge sharing, enabling us to boost our capacity to supply caring, protected and respectful look after our sufferers,” McDonald stated.
A spokesperson for the belief stated that groups are working laborious to validate the info, enhancing accuracy and exploring choices to create further capability to extend the validation price.
They added that Blackpool Instructing Hospitals carries out month-to-month hurt evaluation audits to assist spot and resolve points.
Blackpool Instructing Hospitals is likely one of the final remaining acute trusts anticipated to overlook the March 2026 deadline to have an digital affected person document (EPR) below the Frontline Digitisation programme.
In Could 2025, NHSE awarded a £13.3m ‘tiger groups’ contract to KPMG to help trusts which aren’t monitor to implement an EPR in time.
The belief’s newest board paper mentions £7.2 million in capital expenditure for an EPR however doesn’t set out any implementation plans.
Digital Well being Information contacted IMS MAXIMS, for remark.
