Case Study: Plymouth NHS achieves cross-organisational integration and improved clinical outcomes with InterSystems Ensemble

Plymouth NHS ICT Shared Service delivers cross-organisational benefits

Plymouth NHS ICT Shared Service, which supports about 15,000 users across the Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust, the local primary care trust and 42 GP practices, faced a complex integration challenge: more than 20 disparate clinical systems were linked to a central patient administration system and the Trust needed to migrate services as part of the NPfIT programme. The move to a remote data centre and heavy reliance on ad hoc data queries made it essential to find a scalable, resilient and cost‑effective integration solution that would protect existing investments and enable cross‑organisational information sharing.

The Trust deployed InterSystems Ensemble and Caché to build Salus, a standards‑based interoperability platform (ITK) and local data store, allowing rapid development of two‑way interfaces and modules such as eWARD (real‑time ward views) and RAPA (immediate admission/discharge alerts to community teams). The solution sped up interface rollout, improved data quality and care coordination, reduced unnecessary admissions and lengths of stay, and delivered measurable cost and productivity benefits while providing a flexible foundation for future services like real‑time bed management.

Plymouth NHS

Andy Blofield

Director of Plymouth NHS ICT Shared Service