Boost for nurses as NHS trusts win millions for new technology

The cash will be used to buy hi-tech devices, among them tablets and computer software, to support nurses and midwives.

The biggest award has gone to the South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which treats patients at Middlesbrough and Northallerton, which won £1.4m for work benefiting 350 nurses.

The bulk of the investment will go on a project enabling staff on wards to record details of patients’ vital signs on handheld devices in a move to escalate treatment for deteriorating and high-risk patients. Further investment will be made in laptops used by community nurses.

Trust chief executive Prof Tricia Hart said: “This is excellent news and helps to support a key area for us in transforming the way we care for – and treat patients – through improved and co-ordinated information technology.

“The bids were developed by nurses for nurses and will allow us to develop new, more modern ways of working which will not only help to improve patient care but also benefit our staff.”

Midwives at the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust will be given state-of-the-art digital pens to enable them to write on specially-designed patients notes which upload information into a computer.

Julie Dixon, head of midwifery and gynaecology at the trust, said: “The digital pens are a first for our maternity departments.

“The aim is for them to free up the time midwives spend on paperwork and thus giving them more time to look after their patients.”