Royal Cornwall Hospitals announces go-live date for Oracle EPR
- 9 March 2026
- Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust will go live with a new electronic patient record (EPR) system in June 2026
- The eCare EPR programme was initially planned to launch in spring 2025
- It was pushed forward to “ensure strong clinical engagement”
Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT) has confirmed that it will go live with an Oracle Health electronic patient record (EPR) system in June.
The trust announced in September 2023 that it was designing and developing a new EPR system to replace several digital and paper-based systems, with a launch expected in Spring 2025.
However Kelvyn Hipperson, chief information officer at RCHT, told Digital Health News that a new go-live date has been agreed to ensure the trust is in the best position to make the most of what the system.
“Our EPR programme, eCare, is bringing multiple, complex systems into streamlined patient pathways to enable better integrated, safer care.
“Following a detailed review of our programme’s readiness early last year, we agreed a revised go-live of June 2026 to ensure we had strong clinical engagement and to give us the best foundations to maximise the benefits of a modern, effective and patient centred digital future,” Hipperson said.
The trust’s March board paper states that the eCare EPR programme is “currently rated Amber from a programme delivery perspective which means it remains on target to go live on weekend of 20 June 2026 and that the programme is actively managing risks to an acceptable level”.
It adds that the focus for the last month was on “the completion of data migration testing and testing with integrated systems, planning for sustainment of eCare post go-live and the launch of the training phase”.
Royal Cornwall’s 2026-2031 strategy, says: “In the short term, introducing eCare as our electronic patient record will be one of our most significant service transformations ever, but beyond implementation in 2026, we need to maintain an emphasis on embedding the capabilities that eCare will bring and maximising the transformation opportunities.”
Meanwhile, Essex Partnership University Trust’s February board report said that the trust’s joint Oracle Health EPR programme with Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust is expected to be delayed, because of risks “linked to system integration and programme complexity”.
