01 May 2008
50th Prison 'Excited' to be Using SystmOne!
HMP Wymott in Leyland, Central Lancashire PCT, recently became the 50th prison to be deployed SystmOne. Its two partner prisons, HMP Garth and HMP Preston, are also moving to SystmOne.
Ella Southworth is the Practice Manager across all three sites and is in charge of the implementation of SystmOne. She says, "Since the three prisons were brought under the same PCT, Central Lancashire, we've been trying to streamline the very different processes used at each one, to make things consistent for staff and prisoners as they move between sites. We hope that SystmOne will help us achieve this."
HMP Garth and HMP Wymott have now gone live and HMP Preston is in the process of preparing to go live. Staff are due to carry out further training and it is hoped that by the summer all three sites will be using the system to its full capacity.
"We've been using paper records and paper processes but I don't think we could continue to do that much longer," says Ella. "The way of the world is to go electronic. To be honest, it'll be a relief, and the staff are really excited about it!"
It's not only technology in the centres that is advancing - an extra 35 healthcare staff have recently been employed across HMP Wymott, Garth and Preston to develop the services being offered, to cope with the national increase in prisoner numbers and to enhance the development of the Primary Care Mental Health Teams.
Ella is looking forward to the benefits that a computerised system will bring: "The biggest benefit will be the time saved. It'll be so much quicker to use the computer. Sharing information across the three sites is definitely the way forward. Prisoners often move from HMP Preston to Garth or Wymott, and we also have transfers from other SystmOne Prisons across the country such as HMP Liverpool. With SystmOne, the clinical records will already be on the system and so we won't have to wait for the paper one to arrive."
The first time staff saw SystmOne was when the CSC Alliance Solution Express bus visited them. Since then, 30 super-users have undergone a two-day training course at the PCT. Ella says first impressions of the system were good. "It's going to be brilliant once everything is in place. There will be lots of things that will help us out. At the moment we collate our statistics and reports manually - to do that on the system will save us time, plus we'll be able to compare results across the three sites. Being able to book and cancel clinics at the click of a button will be great as we currently manage appointments on paper. Having one system in place across three sites, including the reception areas, and satellite treatment hatches on the prison wings will be a bonus."
TPP hopes to report on how the three prisons are benefiting from a single centralised system later this year.
