Customer case study · Medway NHS Foundation Trust
Transforming perioperative safety and efficiency
How Kent’s largest and busiest hospital used SAFERsleep to move from paper anaesthesia records to one connected digital pathway, from pre-assessment to acute pain.
Appointment and cancellation results reported by Medway’s clinical team; the £ figure is an estimate based on Medway’s clinic schedule and national data. See “About the figures” below.
For anaesthetists & clinical champions
A system designed by an anaesthetist, that fits how theatres actually work
Medway’s anaesthetists replaced complex, often incomplete paper records with a theatre-ready workflow that checks drugs at the point of preparation and documents as they go.
Workflows that match anaesthesia
Theatre-ready workflows and safety prompts around medication, without working around the system.
Legible, complete records
Anaesthetic records are captured as you work, with structured fields instead of handwriting.
Fewer reported drug administration errors
In a study of 74,478 anaesthetics.¹ Published evidence, not a Medway result.
What changed for Medway’s anaesthetists
- Built-in checks during drug preparation and administration
- Allergies, comorbidities and investigations visible at every stage
- Consultants’ pre-assessment information reaches theatre with no gaps
- Pathways configured to local practice without long development cycles
- A randomised controlled trial in the BMJ found 21% fewer drug recording and administration errors, and key record information was found in 2 min 18 s instead of 3 min 41 s²
“This was a system designed intuitively by an anaesthetist, for anaesthetists. It fits how we actually work in theatres, rather than forcing us to work around the system.”
See the SAFERsleep OR workflow on a real anaesthetic machine.
Request a demoFor patient safety, quality & governance leads
A perioperative record you can trust, audit and learn from
Paper anaesthetic records at Medway were hard to audit and often incomplete. SAFERsleep replaced them with a standardised medication workflow and a complete, searchable record across the whole pathway.
Fewer reported drug administration errors
In a study of 74,478 anaesthetics.¹ Published evidence, not a Medway result.
Fewer drug recording and administration errors
In a randomised controlled trial published in the BMJ.² Published evidence, not a Medway result.
One continuous record
Pre-assessment, theatres, recovery and acute pain share one perioperative timeline at Medway.
What Medway’s governance teams can now do
- Run routine audits of documentation completeness and safety processes
- Track trends and unwarranted variation across specialties and lists
- Support incident reviews with a clear record of what happened
- Monitor improvement over time as a learning health system
- Use perioperative data for GIRFT-style review
“We now have a perioperative record we can trust. It’s complete, legible and searchable, which is vital for audit, incident review and maintaining robust clinical documentation.”
Get the published evidence behind these results.
Request the evidence packFor IT, informatics & digital transformation leads
A specialist perioperative system that complements the EPR
Medway deployed SAFERsleep alongside its wider EPR, not instead of it. Front-line teams get the depth anaesthesia needs, and structured perioperative data flows into the patient’s longitudinal record.
Implementation
A phased rollout that followed the patient journey
Pre-assessment
Digital pre-op assessment to standardise data capture and find risk early.
Theatres
SAFERsleep in use during anaesthesia for safer medication practice and real-time documentation.
Recovery and acute pain
The same record extended into recovery and acute pain, for one continuous timeline.
Why it worked for Medway’s digital strategy
- A purpose-built, high-safety system for front-line perioperative teams
- No isolated “point solution” silo: data reaches the EPR
- Perioperative data used in Trust-wide analytics, governance and reporting
- Phased deployment built confidence with minimal disruption
- Pathways configured locally, without lengthy development cycles
“SAFERsleep has given us a clinically focused perioperative solution that integrates with our wider EPR. It delivers the depth we need in anaesthesia and theatres while still contributing structured data to the Trust’s broader digital and analytics strategy.”
Talk to us about integration, hosting and rollout.
Book a technical briefingFor procurement, supply chain & finance
Ten patients a day in each clinic room, instead of eight
At Medway, nurse pre-assessment appointments fell from 60 to 45 minutes. Together with fewer cancellations, we estimate this releases £0.7m to £0.9m a year of clinical capacity.
Nurse time per patient
Pre-assessment appointments cut from 60 to 45 minutes.
Clinic capacity
10 appointments a day in each clinic room instead of 8, with the same room and staff.
A year, estimated
Clinical capacity released, mostly rather than cash savings.
Where the value comes from
- Faster pre-assessment, about £90k a year: 45-minute nurse appointments, so each clinic room sees 10 patients a day instead of 8
- Fewer on-the-day cancellations, about £590k to £840k a year: around 350 short-notice cancellations avoided, protecting planned theatre time
Most of the gain is capacity rather than cash: more patients treated with the same resource, which feeds directly into elective recovery and waiting-list targets.
“It’s now very rare for us to cancel a patient on the day because something was missed at pre-assessment. Getting it right up front keeps our lists full and our patients moving.”
Build your own business case with Medway’s numbers as a benchmark.
Request business-case supportFor executive sponsors, COOs, CMOs & boards
Fuller theatre lists and fewer patients sent home on the day
Across NHS planned surgery, one operation in ten is cancelled at short notice, and many are avoidable. At Medway, thorough digital pre-assessment means a cancellation caused by something missed is now rare.
Estimated capacity released a year
Based on Medway’s clinic schedule and national cancellation data; mostly capacity rather than cash.
Pre-assessment capacity
More elective patients prepared for surgery with the same nursing resource.
Embedded across the pathway
Used by nurses, anaesthetists and recovery teams from pre-assessment to acute pain.
What it took to succeed at Medway
- A clinically designed solution that fits local practice and national standards
- Strong engagement across every team involved in perioperative care
- Clear clinical leadership to champion adoption
- Alignment with operational, digital and financial priorities
- A sustained focus on measurable improvement in safety, efficiency and patient experience
“Every one of those cancellations used to mean a patient who’d prepared for surgery being sent home, a wasted theatre slot, and someone else waiting longer. Getting it right up front keeps our lists full and our patients moving.”
Hear how Medway made perioperative safety a board-level improvement.
Book an executive briefingAbout Medway NHS Foundation Trust
Kent’s largest and busiest hospital
Surgical services include colorectal, breast, vascular, orthopaedics and trauma, ENT, urology, day-case surgery and chronic pain. SAFERsleep supports pre-assessment clinics across multiple specialties, main theatre anaesthesia, post-operative recovery and acute pain services.
About the figures
The 60 to 45 minute nurse pre-assessment appointment is reported by Medway’s clinical team and reflects current clinic scheduling; the 25% capacity figure is calculated from Medway’s clinic schedule (five nurse-led rooms, eight clinic hours a day: 10 appointments a day in each room instead of 8). The reduction in on-the-day cancellations is reported by Dr Sanders and the clinical team. The figure of £0.7m to £0.9m a year is our estimate of clinical capacity released, rather than direct cash savings. It combines about £90,000 a year of pre-assessment capacity, calculated from Medway’s clinic schedule and valued at NHS Band 6 pay rates, and about £590,000 to £840,000 a year of theatre capacity protected. The theatre figure applies national short-notice cancellation rates³ to Medway’s estimated 20,000 elective operations a year, assumes Medway’s earlier rate matched the national rate and that around three-quarters of cancellations from issues missed at pre-assessment are now avoided (around 350 a year), and values each at two hours of theatre time at £14 to £20 a minute, the range of published UK estimates. Published evidence¹ ² and national cancellation figures³ are not Medway results.
- Webster CS, Larsson L, Frampton CM, et al. Clinical assessment of a new anaesthetic drug administration system: a prospective, controlled, longitudinal incident monitoring study. Anaesthesia. 2010;65:490-9.
- Merry AF, Webster CS, Hannam J, et al. Multimodal system designed to reduce errors in recording and administration of drugs in anaesthesia: prospective randomised clinical evaluation. BMJ. 2011;343:d5543.
- Bedford J, McCone E, Hunt A, et al. The Postponement and Cancellations in Elective Care study: a national evaluation of case postponements and cancellations in elective surgical pathways. Br J Anaesth. 2026;136(6):1925-34.