Birmingham Community Healthcare Launches Pilot Program for Electronic Prescribing

Key Takeaways

Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust will pilot the CLEO SOLO electronic prescribing solution in children’s services starting March 2025.
The pilot aims to digitize the prescription process, reducing errors and administrative burdens associated with handwritten prescriptions.
Successful implementation could lead to expanded use of CLEO SOLO EPS across other services within the Trust.

Pilot Program Overview

Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is set to launch a two-year pilot program for the CLEO SOLO electronic prescribing solution (EPS) in March 2025. This initiative is specifically focused on its community paediatrics and ADHD nursing services, which have traditionally relied on handwritten prescriptions.

The CLEO SOLO EPS is designed to integrate seamlessly with existing electronic patient record systems, streamlining the process of issuing FP10 prescriptions to community pharmacies. The main goal is to tackle the challenges posed by manual prescribing, which include potential errors and delays in the prescription fulfillment process.

John Morrison, the chief pharmacist at the Trust, expressed enthusiasm for the PILOT, stating, “We are looking forward to piloting CLEO SOLO EPS, which has the potential to transform the way prescriptions are managed in our community paediatrics and the ADHD nursing service. By digitising the prescription process, we will be addressing some of the challenges we’ve faced with manual prescribing. We are excited to see the positive impact this pilot will have for our clinicians and patients.”

The Trust’s initiative aims to minimize the risks involved with manual prescriptions, thereby improving the convenience for patients in collecting their prescriptions. In addition, it is expected to alleviate the administrative workload for clinicians, allowing them to focus more on patient care rather than paperwork.

Emma Dew, sales and marketing director at CLEO Systems, commented on the collaboration, stating, “We are delighted to be working with Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust on this pilot. CLEO SOLO EPS has already delivered remarkable benefits in similar settings, where it is reducing prescribing errors and administrative burdens and vastly improving the patient experience.”

The success of this pilot could pave the way for broader implementation of the CLEO SOLO EPS across other services within Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. If the pilot proves beneficial, plans will be put in place to evaluate its expansion throughout the organization.

This pilot initiative follows a similar rollout of CLEO SOLO EPS at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust in July 2024, which is part of a three-year contract concerning its pregnancy assessment unit. Additionally, NHS England entered a contract with CLEO Systems in August 2024 to provide a stand-alone EPS solution for pharmacies that participate in the Community Pharmacy Pathfinder Programme.

In summary, Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust aims to improve the efficiency and safety of prescription management through the pilot of the CLEO SOLO EPS. With its potential to reduce errors and streamline processes, both patients and healthcare providers stand to greatly benefit from this technological advancement in community healthcare.

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