Alison Alldred is an eHospital principal trainer who is responsible for the administrative courses offered to staff at CUH. This year Alison is celebrating 20 years of working at CUH! She told us more about her time here.
I began my working career at a Local Authority in London as an IT trainer on large departmental systems and Microsoft products, prior to moving to Suffolk.
I was in the Lion yard library in Cambridge one fateful day and saw a job advert for an IT trainer at CUH, however, the closing date for applications was that actual day. The role sounded perfect for me so I was determined to apply. I drove straight to Addenbrooke’s, picked up an application form and completed it there and then sat in the concourse! Needless to say, I got the job and the rest is history!
I started my new role in January 2002. The IT training team originally worked in a shed type building (where the patient’s car park has since been built) as we were based with the Human Resources trainers before moving to Level 1 to join the IT department. I found CUH quite overwhelming when I first started – what a massive place to work, even back then, and it was nowhere near the size it is today! However,
I am so pleased that I made the right decision as I cannot imagine working anywhere else now! I’ve made some amazing friends and learnt so much.
Originally I was on a 12 month contract to help introduce WebHISS which was a web based version of the Hospital Information Support System (HISS). HISS was a patient administration system used to record patient details, admissions, transfers, discharges and clinic appointments, as well as keeping records of where the patient’s paper notes were stored. Although we started a pilot for WebHISS in the eye unit it was soon realised that major changes were needed with the IT systems across the NHS and a national proposal was about to start (though never really came to fruition). Therefore, I spent my first few years training staff to use (HISS) and the Order Communications System (OCS) for placing orders for tests and looking up results. As time went by we also introduced Electronic Medical Records (eMR) for creating and storing letters to patients, Patient Monitor for an easily accessible Patient List, eDischarge for creating discharge summaries and Realtime for an up to date view of the bed status in the hospital.
Things really changed in 2014 when the Trust began to move over to the current operating system, Epic. A major training programme got underway for roughly 10,000 staff ahead of the ‘go live’ in October that year. Moving over to the Epic system meant no more paper notes, the entirely electronic system meant that staff would have all patient details at their fingertips! One system, for the majority of the Trust, to replace so many, it was a huge task for the team to train everyone, but the benefits were worth the effort.
Currently I mix working from home, with working from Magog Court and on site as required. My days usually consist of running training courses for administrative staff, helping to keep documentation up to date and supporting the IT service desk calls. I really enjoy going out to see staff at their desks or via zoom to help sort any issues, especially when I’m referred to as the 'Epic Lady'! Running training courses and meeting lots of interesting people is the highlight of my job. Finding out about the vast array of jobs and departments we have here at CUH is fascinating and even after 20 years there’s so much that I don’t know about. This is an absolutely amazing place to work –
I really love my job and although I’m very much behind the scenes of the hospital, I hope that the small part I play helps our staff to input and access information quickly, which in turn helps our patients!
I have always been totally in awe of all the incredible work that goes on in the Trust and even more so after the last couple of years.