With less than 11 months left until a deadline that has already been pushed back, almost one in ten trusts have not yet moved to a digital patient record platform

A month after the originally intended deadline for secondary-care trusts to implement electronic patient record systems, NHS England is providing “tailored support” to almost one in ten trusts that have not yet made the digital switch.

The government-led £2bn Frontline Digitisation scheme was initially scheduled to deliver comprehensive EPR adoption – across 206 health-service bodies – by March 2025. This timeframe was pushed back by a year in 2023 after “a number of NHS trusts” instructed the Department of Health and Social Care that they were “unlikely” to meet the target.

With the new 2026 deadline now less than 11 months away, government and the health service’s central national bodies are directly engaging with the 9% of trusts that are still works in progress. These organisations are being given bespoke assistance, according to secondary care minister Karin Smyth.

The minister – who earlier this year indicated that eight trusts will miss the new extended EPR deadline – added that future digital progress across the health service can be mapped against a baseline nationwide review completed last year.

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“NHS England has supported over 160 trusts with digital transformation, which includes the implementation of electronic patient records,” Smyth said. “Currently, we have achieved a 91% rollout of electronic patient records, with work underway to provide tailored support to the remaining 19 trusts that do not yet have an electronic patient record.”

She added: “The Digital Maturity Assessment was also successfully completed in May 2024, with a 100% response rate from secondary care organisations and integrated care systems (ICSs). This assessment provides a baseline and a holistic view of digital maturity across National Health Service trusts in England. The assessment will be run yearly to track progress and identify areas for improvement.”

The minister’s comments were made in response to a written parliamentary question from fellow Labour MP Afzal Khan.

In major project transparency documents published earlier this year, the DHSC said that the £2bn Frontline Digitisation programme is intended to deliver “a digitally-enabled health and care system, where the health service and its users have the digital services and access to the data they need to effectively manage and improve health and wellbeing”.

The department added: “The… programme is supporting this vision by levelling up ICSs and providers to a baseline level of digital capability, set out in our Digital Capability Framework, which enables frontline clinical and operational staff to make the best use of digital technology to deliver care efficiently, effectively and safely, reducing variations and improving quality and outcomes. The EPR programme is focussed on coverage, ensuring all trusts have an EPR, capability, ensuring that trusts with an EPR meet our standard, and convergence, making decisions about coverage and capability with the aim of having fewer more integrated EPRs serving larger populations.”