• Bolton NHS Foundation Trust wins award for work to speed up district nurse referrals
• Digital teams won 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 won a tech award for 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 were recognised 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.

‘Improved safety and care’

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

It is fantastic to be recognised for breaking ground in this area. The collaboration between digital and clinical colleagues with a shared goal to improving a complex process involving multiple teams across various clinical settings has improved the safety and care of our patients requiring input from the District Nursing teams.

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.