Following the Trust’s acquisition of North West Boroughs, a significant and complex digital programme of work has been underway to move North West Boroughs digital infrastructure to Mersey Care.

This work has involved the transfer of former North West Boroughs colleagues onto Mersey Care IT equipment and the transfer of data, systems, network and telephone connections to Mersey Care. Read more about our progress below.

Over 3000 (90%) former North West Boroughs colleagues have now been moved onto Mersey Care IT equipment.

Some former North West Boroughs colleagues have not yet been moved to a Mersey Care device because of their reliance on other digital and clinical systems that are currently hosted on a different digital infrastructure to Mersey Care.

Until these systems are moved onto Mersey Care’s digital infrastructure, some 300+ colleagues have had to remain using a North West Boroughs device. This means that these colleagues are still having to access IT support through the Mid Mersey Digital Alliance (MMDA) which was the previous IT support provider for the former North West Boroughs NHS Foundation Trust. For more information, please read the update below about the transfer of former North West Boroughs systems to Mersey Care’s digital infrastructure.

Colleagues requiring access to systems that are hosted on the former North West Boroughs digital infrastructure have remained using their existing digital devices and currently receive IT support from the Mid Mersey Digital Alliance (MMDA).

Once these systems are transferred to the Mersey Care digital infrastructure, colleagues using former North West Boroughs devices will be able to move to a new Mersey Care device and will receive their IT support from NHS Informatics Merseyside going forwards.

To date, 11 out of 20 systems have been transferred or decommissioned.

Systems transferred to date include:

  • Canon Therefore - a document management system
  • Cohort – an occupational health system
  • Dawn – a system for disease management or medication management.
  • TDSI - a security access management system
  • Boardmaker – picture communication system
  • CardPresso – ID card system
  • Patient Monies – financial management system

Systems decommissioned include following a detailed systems review include:

  • Charitable Funds
  • JAC
  • Heritage
  • RAM Series 4000 – Asset register

The systems currently in the process of being transferred include:

  • Simple SAF – Finance system
  • Elms – equipment management system
  • Tiny Tags – medical data loggers
  • Datix – incident reporting
  • Sostenuto Estates – Estates service request system
  • IMP – Business Intelligence

The systems planned to be transferred include:

  • BMS
  • Healthy Pathways

Connections to the Mersey Care digital network are being installed at former North West Boroughs sites.

15 out of 21 sites now have connections in place to the Mersey Care network.

Now that the majority of sites are connected to the Mersey Care network, it is possible to begin the process of migrating telephones and telephone systems and plans are underway to complete this work. 

Shared (G) drive data

The data held within the Shared (G) drive has now been moved from the former North West Boroughs data centre to Mersey Care.

This means that former North West Boroughs colleagues using a Mersey Care device can now seamlessly access this data without the need to manually restore access to their shared drive. 

Access has also been provided for those who remain on former North West Boroughs IT equipment.  

Home (H) drive data

Some former North West Boroughs colleagues have now had their Home (H) drive moved from the former North West Boroughs data centre to Microsoft OneDrive. OneDrive is an online file storage service that enables you to store all your files in one place, so that they can be easily and securely accessed from wherever you are, shared and collaborated on with others.

To date, 1,300 former North West Boroughs colleagues have been moved to OneDrive with 2000 remaining. NHS Informatics Merseyside plans to move all remaining colleagues on 1 July 2022 ­and further updates will be provided.

Guidance on using OneDrive can be found below:

Read the OneDrive user guide

Watch an introduction to OneDrive

L Drive data

Former North West Boroughs colleagues have now had the data stored in their L Drive transferred from the former North West Boroughs data centre to Mersey Care. This data is now stored in a new X Drive.

If you are a former North West Boroughs colleague, who has moved to a Mersey Care device, you will now only have access to the X Drive which will contain all the data previously stored in your L Drive. 

If you are a former North West Boroughs colleague who has not yet moved to a Mersey Care device, you will still have access to your L Drive but this drive will be empty. All the data previously stored in this drive will now be accessible from a new X Drive on your device.

If you have created any desktop shortcuts to subfolders on the L Drive, these will no longer work and will need to be recreated to the X Drive. 

Any links within documents that reference the L Drive should continue to work.