Braintree Community Hospital is to go live with TPP’s Community Hospital module when it opens for business this spring, TPP has announced.

The new community hospital, run by a partnership between NHS and private providers operating as Braintree Clinical Services, will become the seventh community hospital to take TPP’s Community Hospital module following its launch last year.

The contract to provide services for Braintree Community Hospital was won by Arkanum, a Cheltenham-based management business specialising in the start-up and operation of new services for the UK public sector.

The hospital will provide elective day surgery, minor surgery, endoscopy, therapy services, diagnostic imaging, a rapid assessment unit, 24 community beds and a range of day treatments and out-patient services.

Additional service provided at the hospital and in patients’ homes will include physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and rehabilitation.

Lisa Holmes, project manager for Arkanum, said SystmOne would be used for outpatients, on day wards and the community beds ward as well as by physiotherapists and allied health professionals.

She added: “We plan to take advantage of the full range of functionality available in the system, including theatres, prescribing, bed management, waiting lists, referrals, appointments, reporting, pathways and multi-resource scheduling.

"We aim to provide integrated pathways for patient care and will now have technology that fits our vision.”

TPP said SystmOne would interface with other systems used in the hospital for radiology, endoscopy and pathology and provide a link to allow visibility of TTOs at pharmacy.

Holmes added: “TPP is a great product but what takes it to another level is the ability to interface with other systems, providing critical integration across pathways.”

TPP said 60% of GPs in Essex already use SystmOne as do child health and community services in the area. Holmes said all local GPs would receive much better discharge documentation via SystmOne and GP SystmOne users would also have the potential to share the full patient records.

Dan Midgley, customer relationship manager at TPP, said several community hospitals were already live with the system.

He added: “We are always listening to their feedback and enhancing the product, ensuring that it supports both clinical and administrative work processes as well as patient management, creating a seamless patient journey from GP referral through in-patient and out-patient care to discharge.”