BOLTON hospital bosses are aiming to get on line for the Millennium and deliver a fitter, leaner service.

Negotiations are underway to introduce a comprehensive, computerised package which will improve patient care.

The Integrated Patient Care Information Support System

will give employees at every level more direct access to services and information they require to give better patient care.

Nurses will be able to request X rays, access pathology results and patients' past medical records.

Clinicians will get direct access to test results and hospital porters will receive on- line requests for their services. Requests for laundry services will also be made via the system.

Ann Schenk, director of service development with Bolton Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "This will be the biggest training task ever to face the Trust."

She added: "Each member of the Trust staff will have to be trained on how to operate the particular part of the system which affects their everyday working."

At present the Trust's paper-based service demands huge chunks of staff time, and separate systems throughout the hospital often prove time consuming.

Alison Roberts, IPCISS project director ,said: "Under the new system, the patients, clinicians, everyone will benefit."

The first phase of the development, once a system supplier has been agreed on, will be the introduction of the patient administration system in June 2000. The system will form the basis of each record opened in the hospital.

Trust bosses have already pledged to protect patient confidentiality and rigorous protocols and passwords will be agreed on to ensure information contained within the system does not fall into the wrong hands.

The system, which will take an estimated five years to cover every department, will be extended out to link in with general practice this will give family doctors the opportunity to directly access pathology results they might have requested.

Mrs Schenk added: "With an ever-growing workload we have to revise our ways of working, and systems as they stand now cannot continue to support the delivery of modern health care in the most efficient way."

Anyone who wants further information about the Trust's IT plans should contact Alison Roberts on 390390.

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