Skip to content

Your Cookie Settings.

We’re using cookies as specified in our cookies policy to give you the best experience on our website. You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off by clicking Manage settings

Accept and continueManage settings

View navigation

Knowledge Hub.

Liverpool and Sefton Roll Out New Child Health Information System During Lockdown.

30th July 2020

The health records of 355,849 children living in Liverpool and Sefton have been consolidated into a new, single child health information system.

The deployment of System C’s CarePlus child health information system progressed to plan and went live successfully, despite the country being in Covid-19 lockdown.

The fully digital service will support the protection and health of Merseyside’s children.  Care professionals in the area will be able to track children from childhood through to their transition to adult services and will have access to all the relevant information to provide suitable care. 

Liverpool and Sefton Child Health Information Services have joined up with neighbouring Cheshire’s and are sharing the same CarePlus system to provide an integrated service.  Cheshire rolled out the CarePlus system at the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown.   

Sue Trinder, Child Health Information Services Director at NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit (SCW*) said:

"This was an important deadline for us and I’m very pleased this new service could progress to plan, despite the very real challenges of Covid-19. We are making great ground across the regions.  Thank you to all the teams involved in making that happen."

St Helens & Knowsley, Wirral, Halton and Warrington Child Health Information Services are due to on-board with System C later in the year, in what will be the final phase in the delivery of a unified record for just over half a million children across the whole of the Cheshire and Merseyside region.  Once complete, the project will integrate records and services across twelve CCGs, nine local authorities, 18 specialist, acute and community trusts, 392 general practices, and six legacy child health information systems.

NHS England and NHS Improvement (North West) commissioned SCW to replace six separate Cheshire and Merseyside Child Health Information Services in October 2019, so that all child health information is managed safely and securely in one place. System C won the contract to supply its CarePlus child health information system shortly after.

The new record system is also connected to the National Events Management Service (NEMS), a national service developed by NHS Digital to allow an individual’s event messages to be shared from one system to another.

This integration means that, from the outset, care teams will receive notifications about births, changes of address, change of GP practice, deaths and the three screening events (new born and infant physical examinations, hearing and bloodspot outcomes).

Liverpool and Sefton’s child health records were consolidated by migrating, and, in some cases, merging records from two instances of Health Solution Wales Community Child Health 2000 and one instance of EMIS Child Health.

Because of the constraints of lockdown, face-to-face training had to be transferred to video calls and floor walking was provided remotely, with open Skype sessions, so users could get immediate assistance as they started using the system.

Markus Bolton, joint chief executive of System C, remarked:

"Cheshire, Liverpool and Sefton are sharing a single child health record to care and protect for their 0-19 population.  That is a great example of joined-up care across a substantial geographical area.  Congratulations to South, Central and West for getting this over the line and at a time faced with unprecedented challenges."

*SCW is an NHS support service that helps health and social care organisations deliver the best possible care to people.  SCW are partners of choice to over 200 organisations that support millions of people across England.

Image of Doctor with mum and daughter