Trust newsletter

A new web-based referral system is to be introduced for hospital staff across the region. Fully funded by NHS England, Connect NENC (North East and North Cumbria) will be delivered over the coming year.

Benefits to the NENC region

Connect NENC will unify and streamline the referral and transfer of patients between the region’s hospitals. By replacing fragmented and inefficient practices with a standardised single web-based system, it will significantly reduce the time and resources currently required for inter-hospital patient referrals. This will improve the efficiency of healthcare delivery and ensures better management of patient information, safeguarding its integrity and accessibility.

Collaboration between healthcare organisations will be key within the system. It facilitates a two-way exchange of information, enabling discussion and consultation between clinicians and multidisciplinary teams. This will ensure patients receive the most appropriate treatment, at the most appropriate location, based on their needs and the availability of clinical skills, equipment, and capacity.

Direct patient benefits

The most important patient benefits will be the consistent referral route used by hospital staff, logging data more securely than the current various referral routes used. It will also reduce the delay in the delivery of care provided through referrals. The system will provide clear visibility of waiting times and referral patterns, to improve equity of access and reduce delays in treatment pathways. It facilitates summary documents and images into the medical records of Trusts, and their visibility to all regional clinicians looking after the patient, through the Great North Care Record.

First Steps

Six specialties have been identified to start this process. Each speciality will have its own Specialty Design Authority (SDA) with its own clinical leader chairing the group.

Speciality	Lead/Organisation	CCIO
Cardiology	Sam Nath – Northumbria Healthcare	Nikhil Premchand
Renal	Alex Wood – NENC Renal Network Manager	Jonathan Murray
Neurosurgery	Nitin Mukerji – South Tees Hospitals	Andrew Adair
Spinal	Nitin Mukerji – South Tees Hospitals	Andrew Adair
Vascular	Rachel Bell – Newcastle Hospitals	Chris Plummer
Hepato-Biliary-Surgery	Rohan Thakkar – Newcastle Hospitals Steven Foster – Newcastle Hospitals	Chris Plummer

To find out more about the project, you can email the team (nuth.connectnenc@nhs.net) with any queries.