On Tuesday 8 October the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (Royal Devon) is testing what happens when its electronic patient record (EPR) is not operational.

Since 2020 the Royal Devon has used the Epic EPR to care for patients. It has helped the Trust improve patient safety, work more efficiently and offers patients more control over their care.

October’s exercise involves shutting down the Epic system for three hours.  All teams and services across the Trust will experience a downtime from 10am to 1pm.

To continue to care for patients safely during this downtime, staff will be using the back up digital system and pen and paper for clinical documentation. If any patients have any concerns about this please speak to your care team.

Patients using the MY CARE digital service to manage their appointments on their phone or computer may need to make a note of their appointment details as the service will not work during the downtime. It may also take a little longer for your appointments or results to appear on the app.

The exercise is being carefully planned to minimise the impact it has on services but there may be a slowing down to emergency services as staff switch back to paper records for the duration of the exercise.

In the event of an actual incident or any other unusual call on the Trust’s services, Epic functionality can be switched back on immediately.

Royal Devon Chief Executive Officer, Sam Higginson said, “Using a digital patient record has transformed the care we offer our patients, but with that comes a responsibility to prepare for what happens if those digital tools, for whatever reason, do not work as expected. I extend my thanks in advance to all our staff and patients who will contribute to this important test of our services.”