The initial programme across Greater Manchester consisted of 10 Docman Hubs across 10 NHS Trusts to deliver 5 million patient letters electronically per annum to over 500 GP practices, driving significant efficiencies and clinical benefits across the region. The Project has grown by a further 4 Docman Hubs to support the following providers:
- Greater Manchester West Mental Health Trust
- Pennine Care Mental Health Trust
- Manchester Mental Health Trust
- Bridgewater Community Health
Daniel Alexander, Project Manager, GMCSU “It has been a real pleasure in working as part of the GM ECC programme and it is something that I am and will be really proud of once every document type from the myriad of Acute systems are being sent electronically using Docman Hubs. In 2010 we rolled out Docman Hub to enable practices in Salford to receive clinical correspondence electronically from the Salford Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. This successful piece of work is now part of the GM ECC deployment across 14 Trusts and over 500 GP practices; it will create huge benefits for the region across primary and secondary care.”
“One example is The Christie Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, a specialist cancer hospital, who by sending patient letters electronically can communicate these letters to any of the practices connected to the Hub instantly. This means documents can be transferred from Hub to Hub to enable documents to go to any GP practice across Greater Manchester. This not only removes the associated costs of paper transfer but provides significant time savings for healthcare professionals. As this type of organisation deals with patients from a wider regional scope and with such importance it really makes a difference to deliver this communication electronically for patients.”
Ric Thompson, Managing Director, Docman “the project across Greater Manchester will make a significant benefit to patients, Clinicians, healthcare professionals and organisations by driving efficiencies and supporting timely delivery of information. There are now 100 NHS Trusts that have taken the Docman Hub route to support the delivery of achieving paper free care.”
The project drives the following benefits:
- A reduction of correspondence delivery times, avoiding contractual fines under 24 hour targets
- Addressing clinical risk for a more secure, fully audited and more robust accessibility to patient data
- A single user interface for GPs
- Significant time and cost savings
- Streamlined processes for delivering information for when it is needed most