New evaluation by Future Well being Intelligence (FHI) has discovered that regardless of efforts by successive governments to digitise sufferers data, the overwhelming majority of NHS trusts nonetheless spend giant sums to take care of paper medical data.
Authorities information analysed by FHI reveals the NHS in England spent £230.5m on paper data in 2023-24, the newest 12 months information is out there for. That is regardless of some 94% of trusts now having digital affected person data (EPRs).
The analysis comes after final week’s publication of the 10 12 months plan for the NHS, which provides digitisation a pivotal function in attaining NHS modernisation and bettering productiveness, and factors to how tough it’s to get rid of paper data even after having digitising.
In 2013 the then well being secretary Jeremy Hunt known as for the NHS to be paperless by 2018. Twelve years on from the goal, trusts are nonetheless spending practically 1 / 4 of a billion kilos a 12 months on paper data.
The brand new report, ‘Medical Data and Digital Maturity’, additionally reveals there is no such thing as a statistical important correlation between the digital maturity of an NHS belief, as measured by NHS England’s Digital Maturity Evaluation and the quantity a belief spends on paper medical data. Larger digital maturity trusts had been simply as prone to be massive spenders on paper medical data.
As an alternative, the scale of a hospital belief by way of variety of beds was a extra dependable indicator of their spend on paper medical data.
Solely a handful of excessive digital maturity hospitals have managed to get rid of, or practically get rid of, paper data completely, or scale back spending to the naked minimal required to retain historic data required for medico-legal reference.
The bottom spenders tended to be smaller specialist tertiary hospitals.
One notable exception and success story is Cambridge College Hospitals NHS FT, which regardless of having over 1,100 beds additionally has one of many lowest spends on paper medical data within the nation at £193,000.
The celebrated belief is likely one of the most digitally superior in England, having been the primary to implement the Epic EPR system a decade in the past.
Against this, Barts Well being NHS Belief, with 2,133 beds, which carried out an Oracle EPR over a decade in the past has one of many highest spends on paper medical data within the nation at £8.6m.
The NHS belief that spends highest spend on paper medical data within the nation is Northern Care Alliance NHS FT, with 1617 beds, and an annual spend of £9.4m.
Future Well being Intelligence analysed Estates Return Info Assortment (ERIC) information from NHS England for the report.
‘Medical Data and Digital Maturity’ is out there right here.
Future Well being Intelligence is the brand new impartial market intelligence and information enterprise, created in January 2025 from the previous intelligence arm of Digital Well being Intelligence. The corporate is the main supply of knowledge and evaluation on the fast-evolving UK well being IT market.
