Birmingham Community Healthcare begins rollout of ePMA system

Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has started recording and administrating medical information through an electronic prescribing and medicines administration system (ePMA).

The implementation of the system, called MedChart, which is supplied by Dedalus, went live at Moseley Hall Hospital in April 2025 and took two weeks to roll out.

Shanese Malcolm, clinical team leader at Moseley Hall Hospital, said: “The MedChart has brought about positive change, it increases accessibility for the team, it is more efficient and saves us much needed time that we can spend one to one with the patients.”

Following a monitoring period, a phased go-live is now taking place across other wards at Moseley Hall and West Health Hospitals which will continue through to June 2025 until all inpatient areas at the trust have MedChart in place.

The ePMA has initially being implemented in Ward 8, a 28 bedded inpatient ward which supports the rehabilitation of people who have had a stroke through round-the-clock care from doctors, nurses and physiotherapists.

Traditionally, in an inpatient setting, clinical and medication information is often recorded via paper notes and drug charts located by the patient’s bedside.

The new way of working has helped to build a clearer picture of each patient’s medication, improve communication between nursing, medical and pharmacy staff and minimise manual, paper chart-based errors.

Jesina Kirby, digital clinical information officer at Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, said: “It’s great to see how Ward 8 has adopted this new change and really embraced using MedChart.

“The new ePMA system has improved patient safety, which was the ultimate goal.”

In March 2025, Birmingham Community Healthcare began piloting the CLEO SOLO electronic prescribing solution (EPS) in its children’s services.

A two-year pilot launched in community paediatrics and the ADHD nursing service, which have both historically relied on handwritten prescriptions.

CLEO SOLO EPS integrates with existing electronic patient record systems and digitises the process of sending FP10 prescriptions to community pharmacies to help address the challenges associated with manual prescribing, such as risk of errors and delays.