NHS East of England used Huddle to support the roll out of the national Safety Express programme, which aimed to reduce patient harm from various issues. As the regional coordinator, NHS East of England needed to share documents and information across 10 participating host organizations located in different areas. Huddle allowed over 100 people involved in Safety Express to access documents, plans, and updates in one secure place from any location at any time. It also improved efficiency by maintaining version control and change history. NHS East of England found Huddle to be an effective collaboration tool and planned to use it for other projects as well.

1. Case study
NHS East of England
NHS East of England supports roll out of national Safety
Express programme with Huddle.
About NHS East of England
Established on 1 July 2006, NHS East of England is the Strategic Health Authority for the region,
covering Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. The organiza-
tion is responsible for ensuring that the £8.1 billion spent on health care in the region delivers the
best services and value-for-money for more than 5.6 million people.
Location UK Challenge To collaborate effectively and share
Sector Public sector information with 10 host organisa-
tions for the national “Safety
Industry Healthcare
Express” QIPP programme.
NHS East of England (EoE) is the Strategic Health Authority (SHA) for the region, providing leadership
to 40 local NHS organizations across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk “I no longer have to worry about version
and Suffolk. Consequently, the SHA frequently has to collaborate and share information with control when there are a lot of people
geographically dispersed teams. With the launch of the national “Safety Express” Quality, Innovation, contributing to documents. Thanks to
Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) program in 2010, NHS EoE recognized that email was no longer a Huddle’s audit trail and comment
sufficient way to communicate and turned to Huddle. functionalities, we always know exactly
who gave what feedback and what
As the region’s SHA, NHS EoE was tasked with recruiting 10 host organizations to participate in updates have been made to content.”
Safety Express, which aims to significantly reduce patient harm from pressure ulcers, catheter - Lyn McIntyre, Head of Clinical Quality and Patient Safety
acquired urinary tract infections, falls and venous thromboembolism. Each selected host organization
then formed an improvement team of up to 10 healthcare professionals to work across primary,
community, acute and social care within the region.
Once the local participants in the Safety Express project were finalized, NHS EoE’s program team
stepped into its role as a coordinator for learning sessions, site visits and knowledge management.
These activities strive to support frontline staff, enabling them to improve systems and provide better,
simpler and safer care for patients.
“With such a large scale project to coordinate, we needed to be able to share documents with team
members without filling up people’s inboxes and causing confusion over document versions,” explains
Lyn McIntyre, Head of Clinical Quality and Patient Safety, NHS East of England. “As the people
involved in the program are based at various locations, we also needed conferencing facilities so we
could avoid the time and monetary expense of in-person meetings. What we really wanted was a
system that could do everything.”
Members of staff across NHS EoE were already using Huddle for a number of other projects. Due to
Huddle’s ease of use and the fact it could be accessed from anywhere, at anytime, the decision was
made to integrate it into the Safety Express programme from the outset.
Lyn explains: “As Safety Express was a completely new workstream, there were no established ways
of working already in place. Other than email, Huddle wasn’t replacing any tools or services, so
people became accustomed to using it from the project’s start. All project communication is done via
Huddle.”
More than 100 people involved in Safety Express now have access to all the information they need in
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2. one secure place. Department of Health (DoH) papers, policy documents and articles are uploaded
into a resource workspace. As soon as new papers are released, people no longer have to visit
various web sites for information, they just log into Huddle. Development plans, key project dates,
details of DoH site visits and workshops are also instantly accessible.
“Huddle ensures that everyone knows exactly what’s happening on the project and efficiency has
greatly improved. We have a few team members that are part-time and, when they’re not in the office,
colleagues can immediately pick up their work,” Lyn continues. “I no longer have to worry about
version control when there are a lot of people contributing to documents. Thanks to Huddle’s audit
trail and comment functionalities, we always know exactly who gave what feedback and what
updates have been made to content. As a manager, it’s also extremely useful to receive notifications
on what has and hasn’t been done. ”
Huddle will continue to be used following the NHS restructure, which will see the functions provided
by the DoH and SHAs combined, so the NHS EoE does not have to worry about migration to a new
system. The SHA hopes to streamline other projects by using Huddle more widely.
Lyn concludes: “Huddle is a progressive and efficient way of working. When I try to collaborate with
colleagues that aren’t using Huddle, I think ‘I just need to get them Huddled!’”
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