Digital Aspirants

The Digital Aspirant programme helps NHS trusts raise their digital maturity by supporting organisations to deliver a set of core capabilities, reducing the gap between the levels of digitisation across the NHS.

In February 2020, 23 NHS trusts were named as the first sites for the Digital Aspirant programme. An additional four trusts joined the first wave during 2020. They will each receive up to £6m over the duration of the programme to help deliver their digital ambitions. In March 2021 an additional 32 trusts joined the programme. Seven of these will also receive up to £6m over the next three years, while the remaining 25 are receiving funding of £250,000 to develop their digital strategy and business case.

Sharing learning is a key component of all future digital investment and trusts in the Digital Aspirant programme will build on the work of the current Global Digital Exemplar programme by using their blueprints and participating in learning networks with others who have done or are doing similar things.

As well as using the existing blueprints, Digital Aspirants will also create blueprints to enable others to progress more efficiently.

The trusts taking part in the programme are:

Digital Aspirants wave one

Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust

Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust

East London NHS Foundation Trust

East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust

Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Leicester Partnership NHS Trust

Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust

Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust

North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust

Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust

Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust

Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King's Lynn NHS Foundation Trust

The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust

University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust

Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust

Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Digital Aspirants wave two fully funded*

East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust

The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust

University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust

West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust

Digital Aspirants wave two seed funding*

Airedale NHS Foundation Trust

Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust

East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust

East Cheshire NHS Trust

East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust

Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust

George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust

Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust

Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust

Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust

North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust

Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust

Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust

Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust (working in collaboration with Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust)

Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust

South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust

The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust

The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust

University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust

University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust

York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

*Wave two fully funded trusts will receive up to £6m each over the next three years to help deliver their digital ambitions. Wave two seed funding trusts will receive £250,000 each to develop their digital strategy and business case.

The Digital Aspirant Plus programme

The Digital Aspirant Plus (DA+) programme aims to stimulate innovation in Electronic Patient Record (EPR) systems across the acute, and the mental health and community sectors.

The EPR Accelerator Project for Acute Trusts

In the acute space, the guiding principle is the “levelling up” of digital capabilities across health and care. We’re partnering with organisations at an early stage of their digital transformation journey to support them to select and implement a modern EPR to meet the rapidly changing needs of the healthcare sector. We'll be supporting these organisations throughout the procurement and delivery of their EPR solution. Through this process, we will develop delivery templates with participating trusts to support adoption and spread across other organisations, helping them save time and money when procuring and implementing a modern EPR.

The EPR Innovator Project for Community and Mental Health Trusts

In the mental health and community sectors we’ll be partnering up with organisations to enable investment to support the development of EPR capabilities that are currently not provided across the market.

For example, Trusts could use the investment to build capability around:

• Mobility and flexible working to support mobile workforce, community working and remote access
• Interoperability of clinical and operational systems
• Remote monitoring and supporting people at home
• Support for full patient pathways

During 2021/22 NHSX is supporting the participating organisations to develop their plans including seed funding of up to £250,000 to accelerate their planning and readiness activity.

The trusts selected to take part in the EPR Accelerator Project for Acute Trusts are:

• Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
• Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
• East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust
• East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust

The trusts selected to take part in the EPR Innovator Project for Mental Health and Community Trusts are:

• Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust
• Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
• Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust