Joint Acute Clinical Strategy: Our Ambitions

We’ve been working together for a number of years, collaborating across the three Trusts – the James Paget University Hospitals, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals and The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn.

We are now working together on a new Joint Acute Clinical Strategy (ACS) which will help us integrate patient pathways and maximise the benefits of working together brought by a single Electronic Patient Record (EPR).

Later this year we will be embarking on a transformation of our working practices through the introduction of electronic records to replace our paper ones. Making this leap forward in technology has great benefits for patient and staff experience in the longer term.

To get to that position, we need to align our clinical strategies with the Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care System (ICS) Clinical Strategy (available here) and clearly identify the opportunities for integration, both across our hospitals and with our system partners.

To guide this work on developing joint plans where our individual hospital clinical strategies intersect with beneficial integration opportunities, the three Trusts have co-produced Joint Acute Clinical Strategy: Our Ambitions (available here).

Jo Segasby, Chief Executive of the James Paget University Hospitals and Senior Responsible Owner for the Joint Acute Clinical Strategy says: “Our aim is to work together to deliver the best possible care for people in Norfolk and Waveney. We need the support of clinical teams to look at the services they deliver, consider national best practice and develop opportunities for system integration and synergy across the three hospitals.

“The aim is to have sustainable patient-centred services supported by common procedures and practices, enhanced by common technology and collaborative workforce development.  This may involve changing how we provide services in the three hospitals and delivering some of our services in the community.”

Alice Webster, Chief Executive of The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn, says: “Patient across the region rightly deserve to expect consistently high standards of care. Our ambitions demonstrate a collective will to standardise practice so that the services we deliver are the same for all patients regardless of where they live.

“At QEH we are delighted we will now be able to deliver excellent patient care from a new state-of-the art purpose-built hospital on our existing King’s Lynn site, following a decision by the Government to add us to the New Hospital Programme.

“I know our clinical teams in at QEH will work closely with colleagues at James Paget and NNUH to bring our ambitions to life.”

Sam Higginson, NNUH CEO, says: “Over the coming months we will be working with our clinical teams to align our plans with the other two acute hospitals and the Integrated Care System.  Together, we will strengthen local health services and deliver great care for patients in Norfolk and Waveney.

Over the coming months, clinical specialty leadership teams will be asked to get involved in collaboratively developing the Joint Acute Clinical Strategy in the lead-up to the introduction of the EPR, using our strategic clinical ambitions to inform service development plans in the annual planning round for 2024/25.