University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) hosted the first NORSE National Conference on Wednesday 7 March 2018, at the Institute of Translational Medicine (ITM) located on the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham campus.

NORSE, which stands for network of on-call referral system, is an award-winning system, originally developed to support referrals to the neurology department and transform the way neurosurgeons meet the needs of critically ill patients.

The innovative solution, which was developed in 2010, allows consultants and registrars to receive notifications and respond to requests from other hospitals with advice and management plans via an application for the BlackBerry smartphone.

Additionally, the system’s integration with the Pharmacy On-Call System (POCS) streamlines the work of pharmacists, greatly accelerating the speed of diagnosis and treatment, reducing costs and providing an important audit trail.

Following the system’s success in neurology, UHB’s IT department further developed NORSE to support other areas of care, including renal, burns and liver.

The conference highlighted how NORSE is enhancing patient care for those with hand injuries, burns and trauma as well as how the application can support teams dealing with a major incident.

NORSE is now successfully being used in a number of NHS trusts across the country.