• Bolton NHS Foundation Trust shortlisted for work to speed up district nurse referrals
• Digital teams are a finalist in the HTN Health Tech Award ‘best use of digital for improving care pathways’
• The technology helps ensure referrals are completed accurately

Bolton NHS Foundation Trust has been shortlisted for a tech award following its work to speed up district nurse referrals and provide patients with safer care more quickly by using digital technology.

Digital teams at the Trust are finalists in the HTN Health Tech Awards ‘best use of digital for improving care pathways’ category.

In March 2024, the Trust integrated district nurse referrals across secondary and community care using Sunrise EPR, provided by Altera Digital Health.

The technology helps ensure referrals are completed accurately and provides district nurses with crucial data that helps them assess, prioritise and schedule ongoing patient care.

Within the first month of being live, more than 230 referrals were processed. It’s also helped enable a reduction in patient incidents, a joined-up care record across hospital and community care and more reliable and accurate information sharing between teams.

Zoe Fitzsimmons, Chief X Officer at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, said:

The district nurse referral within Sunrise has been transformative for the acute and district nursing teams. Now with one single source of truth, the teams no longer have to duplicate work or spend time investigating if a referral has been completed. This single process allows for one route to referral.

The HTN Health Tech Awards are designed to celebrate digital teams, programmes, innovations and health tech suppliers which have made a difference throughout the year. They also aim to provide a platform to share these innovations and solutions to help shape future services and systems across health and care.

The winners will be announced at a virtual awards ceremony on Wednesday 8 October. More information about the awards can be found on the Health Tech Newspaper’s website.