Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust selects Better platform to support integrated care

Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has selected Better to provide a Digital Health Platform that supports low-code development and vendor-neutral data persistence. The new platform will support the Trust’s ambition to digitise and integrate mental health and learning disability services across its geographical area and underpin the transformation of services.

Surrey and Borders Partnership is the leading NHS provider of mental health and learning disability and neurodevelopmental services for people of all ages in Surrey and northeast Hampshire. The Trust is also the leading provider of drug and alcohol services in Surrey. It employs 2,800 staff serving a population of more than 1.4 million. Services are provided in community settings, hospitals, and residential homes with an emphasis on providing local treatment and support close to people's homes wherever possible.

Following a detailed procurement exercise, the Trust selected Better Digital Health Platform, unlocking rich data to be structured in an open format, accessible in real-time, and providing a low code tools environment that allows non-programmers to quickly build intuitive, user-friendly applications that can run on a range of desktop and mobile devices.  
 
Using openEHR to provide a vendor-neutral data layer will provide a core foundation for unifying mental health and learning disabilities data into a patient-centric longitudinal record. The combined use of FHIR and openEHR will support integration with partners in the Trust’s geographical footprint, enabling the development of tools supporting integrated workflows. 
 
The low-code environment will support the acceleration of integrated care use cases with user-centred design principles, drawing on the skills of in-house design teams that work closely with clinical digital professionals and people with lived experience of services.  
 
The Trust’s Adapt+ programme is delivering a future for the Trust’s electronic patient record (EPR) while growing an open federated data ecosystem to drive digital transformation across the wider footprint of its third-sector partners. The aim is to deliver better, more joined-up mental health and learning disability care for the community. 

Mike Cavaye, Director of Digital Strategy and Transformation (CIO), Surrey and Borders Partnership, commented: “Modernisation of our EPR and the investment in an open data platform is a key part of the strategy to further digitise and integrate mental health and learning disabilities services. The ability to innovate at pace and easily integrate locally and regionally will ensure our Trust is a leading provider of mental health and learning and neurodevelopmental services effectively working with our partners as we continually develop our services around the people we serve”. 
 
Dr Ayesha Rahim, Consultant Psychiatrist and Chief Medical Information Officer, Surrey and Borders Partnership, said: “Improving care for people who use our services drives all that we do. Moving to an open data platform opens up opportunities for us to better share valuable information with health and care partners to offer timelier and more joined up care. It also allows us to empower people - and their families and carers - to experience greater control and ownership of their care, with better outcomes and satisfaction as a result.” 

Alastair Allen, CTO of Better, said: “We always say that data is key, and it is everywhere. So, unified and instantly available patient data is the lifeblood of any healthcare organisation. We are delighted that a trust as innovative as Surrey and Borders Partnership has selected Better and its Digital Health Platform to support their integrated care journey. We are seeing momentum towards healthcare organisations choosing open data and open standards and are happy that Surrey and Borders Partnership is leading the way for mental health providers in England.”

About Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust: 
We are providers of mental health, learning disability, neurodevelopmental and drug and alcohol services and support people of all ages. We provide a broad range of community and hospital services, mostly in Surrey and north east Hampshire. Our high-quality care focuses on enabling people and their carers to live well.