Transforming pre-operative assessment with SystmOne at Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust

Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust is using SystmOne to unlock the full value of shared care, giving clinicians instant access to complete patient records across organisational boundaries and transforming how pre-operative assessment is delivered.

“SystmOne is now an essential part of how we deliver care, providing a far richer and more clinically useful capability than national and local shared care records. It has transformed how we work, replacing what once felt like a far more manual, fragmented approach with a modern, efficient way of delivering patient care.”

Dr William Robert Garrett – Consultant Anaesthetist

Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust

Creating a better pathway

Pre-operative assessment relies on a complete and accurate patient history, yet this was often time-consuming to compile, with clinicians pulling information from multiple sources and many patients attending in person to fill the gaps.

Salisbury set out to deliver a single, clinically relevant patient summary instantly at the point of care.

The solution: a tailored SystmOne summary

Using SystmOne’s Acute Hospital Module, Salisbury worked with a linked GP to design and continuously refine a bespoke pre-operative summary.

This “SFT Pre-Op summary” gives anaesthetists and pre-operative nurses immediate access to a structured, clinically relevant view of the patient record – available at the click of a button and designed around real clinical workflows.

SystmOne enables:

Access to correspondence from across the healthcare system, including specialist letters sent to GPs (e.g. cardiology and haematology)
Visibility of patient records beyond the local Integrated Care Board, supporting patients from across the South West
Direct input of community data, such as blood pressure readings, into the GP record

This level of configurability ensures clinicians see exactly the information they need, in a format that supports safe and efficient decision-making.

Before and after: transforming the workflow

Before SystmOne

Patient histories were manually compiled from multiple sources
Clinicians relied on fragmented systems and incomplete information
Many patients were required to attend hospital for face-to-face pre-operative assessment

After SystmOne

A complete, clinician-designed patient summary is available instantly
Relevant records and letters from across care settings are accessible in one place
The majority of patients are assessed and managed remotely
Only patients requiring specific tests or major surgery attend in person

Driving efficiency at scale

Salisbury processes approximately 14,500 surgical patients each year.

By providing immediate access to a comprehensive patient summary:

Thousands of clinical hours are saved annually that would otherwise be spent compiling medical histories
The need to manually gather and reconcile records is removed for most patients
A large proportion of patients avoid unnecessary face-to-face appointments
Clinical teams can focus time on patients who require intervention or optimisation

Improving patient experience and safety

The impact extends beyond operational efficiency:

Fewer hospital visits – many patients are assessed remotely, reducing travel and inconvenience
Faster decision-making – clinicians can access complete information instantly
Safer care – access to full medical histories and specialist input supports better-informed decisions
Less repetition – patients are not repeatedly asked to provide the same information

Supporting system-wide care

SystmOne also enables closer collaboration across care settings:

Blood pressure readings collected in the community can be entered directly into GP records, supporting primary care targets
Clinicians can access information for patients outside the local ICB, ensuring continuity of care for a wider population

Enabling true shared care with SystmOne

Salisbury’s approach highlights key strengths of SystmOne:

Modern and flexible – summaries can be designed and refined around evolving clinical needs
Truly interoperable – access to records and correspondence across organisational boundaries
Write-back capability – clinicians can input data directly into GP records
Integrated across care settings – reducing fragmentation and duplication

Other systems, including national and regional record services, do not provide the same level of completeness or flexibility, and often lack access to key information such as external correspondence.

A model for transformation

SystmOne is now an integral part of Salisbury’s pre-operative pathway. By removing the need to repeatedly gather patient histories, clinical teams can focus on optimisation and improving outcomes rather than duplicating effort.

The Trust’s approach demonstrates how a configurable, shared record system can support large-scale transformation—enabling more efficient workflows, better patient experience, and safer care.