Preparatory work began in 2005, when North Mersey NHS leaders agreed that sharing local Information Management and Technology (IM&T) resources would provide the capacity and skills required to support major technology programmes and the future needs of the health economy. Following colleague engagement, the agreement of hosting arrangements and the establishment of a management board, Service Level Agreements with partner organisations were approved in September 2006. The North Mersey Health Informatics Service formally went live on 1 October 2006.

Gemma Lewis and Kristen-Watson Mattocks at the launch event of the North Mersey Health Informatics Service (HIS)!

The new shared service played an important role in coordinating major system deployments associated with the National Programme for IT (NPfIT). This included supporting the implementation of Patient Administration Systems (PAS) across community and acute services and developing knowledge that could be shared across organisational boundaries.

IM also supported the expansion of the CyberREN renal system to include North Wales and the Isle of Man, and developed integration functionality to enable multiple PAS and laboratory feeds, along with the communication of results to the UK Renal Registry.