A technology revolution is energising NHS services and connecting patients with their care to improve health and wellbeing across the UK.

As the world wrestles with the concurrent pressures of the pandemic and ageing populations, intuitive IT systems are redefining the capabilities of clinicians and administrative staff to meet growing demands on their time and resources.

Stress points across the NHS have been amplified by the cumulative impact of the pandemic, but leading healthcare technology company TPP is providing hope with smart and proven systems that are being used by more than 250,000 clinicians.

Its success is built on 23 years’ healthcare IT heritage and the company’s core product SystmOne, which curates 50 million patient records in the UK and is used by 7,000 NHS organisations, including 2,600 GP practices.

Its reach and reliability are vital to the national drive for integrated care, which aims to connect multiple organisations across healthcare to boost efficiencies and patient outcomes.

“We have a wide understanding of healthcare and the NHS, which allows us to find ways to make the patient journey better and improve clinical delivery,” says Matthew Stickland, Director of Strategy at the Leeds-based firm, a pioneer of integrated care.

Given the current emphasis on creating integrated care systems and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, never has it been more vital to deliver connected, cross-organisational care

“Our approach enables GPs and hospitals to work more efficiently, reduce their costs and, crucially, deliver the right services to the right patients. We are not just supplying the software, we use our experience and insights from clinical data to support the NHS in delivering better healthcare.”

Its bespoke Autoplanner software recently scored a huge success in a community nursing scheme in Leicestershire where it more than doubled patient contact time from 31 to 71 per cent of the working day. With the smart use of data, it optimised work patterns to save 12.5 hours’ clinical time per team daily and improve outcomes and patient satisfaction.

TPP’s software, which collates data centrally, is also reducing pre-operative assessments in several hospitals from a cumbersome forty-five minutes down to five minutes, freeing up clinicians’ time.

SystmOne, which is one of the world’s biggest online databases, is deployed across the NHS and its patient-facing portal Airmid helps 2.5 million patients to access their medical records regularly so they can be more involved in their care.

TPP systems perform securely across primary care, hospitals, mental health and social care, and its interoperability with other systems across healthcare will be a critical asset as the UK emerges from the pandemic to face intense pressure from an ageing population living longer with co-morbidities. Figures from the Office for National Statistics forecast that one in five people in the UK will be over 65 in 2030, while the 85-plus age group is expected to double to 3.2 million by 2041.

“Our ethos from the day we were founded was to provide a joined-up system and we have seen that grow across organisations,” says Stickland. “Given the current emphasis on creating integrated care systems and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, never has it been more vital to deliver connected, cross-organisational care.

“The question is how do we make sure that a hospital isn’t just an isolated end-point and separate from its community. We enable care to be delivered across the community so resources are focused on better patient outcomes, better patient experience and cost reduction.”

Independent research has shown that deploying TPP SystmOne across an acute hospital trust would generate £82.5 million in benefits across ten years while the company’s electronic observations system at Airedale Hospital, in Yorkshire, boosted capacity by 25 per cent and could save 900 hours of clinicians’ time annually.

“Our experience, understanding and commitment to making technology work for patients and clinicians mean we can make a huge difference to the NHS and healthcare,” says Stickland. “The pandemic has tested everyone to the limit and it has provided demand for innovation to tackle future challenges.

“We have an opportunity to revolutionise healthcare by using safe and secure IT systems that have already proved their capabilities. There is the potential to do even more for the benefit of patients and the NHS.”