History

The story of Adastra began in 1992 when Lynn Woods, now Executive Advisor to the Board, was appointed to manage the South East Kent Association of Doctors on Call (SEADOC), based in Folkestone. SEADOC was one of many GP Cooperative organisations formed across the UK to provide coordinated out of hours services, but was the first to expand to operate on a wide area basis. The initial Folkestone and Ashford service was extended through 1993/4 to cover Romney Marsh and then Hastings, Bexhill, Eastbourne and Newhaven. The expanded operating area covered well over half a million patients populating a 70-mile strip of the south coast.

SEADOC quickly recognised that a computer system would be needed to manage the high volume of patient calls electronically. With no suitable software product available for use by Cooperatives, SEADOC commissioned a system to its own specification. 19-year old James Berry, a Computer Sciences student at the University of Southampton, was asked to tackle the project and in December 1993 James produced his first version of what was to become Adastra. It was an immediate success.

As the SEADOC operation began to attract attention from around the country, Lynn and James decided to form a company to exploit the software’s potential. Dorset Health Commission became Adastra’s first customer in April 1995 and James graduated from Southampton with a first class honours degree later on that year. He also won the British Computer Society Prize for Outstanding Achievement and therefore belongs to that scarce group of entrepreneurs who can claim to have launched a successful business whilst still in full-time education.

From its modest beginnings in a small office in Hythe, Adastra moved to Folkestone in 1997 and, as staff numbers continued to grow, to its current location in Ashford in 2000. Adastra merged with rival provider Owl Software in May 2002. The five core technical staff supporting Owl out of its Norwich headquarters moved to Kent at the end of 2002, and four of them are still with Adastra as key members of the software development and project management teams.

Since 2002, Adastra has been developing its next generation software system, Adastra v3, which is being released in modular form and is progressively taking over from the previous Adastra v2 and Knight Owl installations. v3 is written in C# for the .NET framework with SQL server as its data store. The upgrade programme is now about 75% complete and is expected to conclude in 2009. In parallel with the software development programme, the Company has developed its support of user IT infrastructure, and now has a workforce of nearly 40 specialist hardware and network engineers. The Technical Services team has achieved Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status, which recognises the technical ability, skill and commitment to the platform on which the software runs. Our engineers specialise in technologies such as networking (including security), Citrix Presentation Server, Access Gateway, Windows Mobile and mobile data terminals to deliver an all-encompassing IT service to point of care.

Over the last few years Adastra has assumed an increasingly central role in the delivery of out-of-hours and urgent care. Major policy initiatives at national level have driven a remarkable pace of change to both the commissioning and delivery of urgent care services. Most GP Cooperatives have gone, to be replaced by operational hubs now directly commissioned by Primary Care Trusts and equivalent agencies. There is intense Government interest in the development of integrated services which can deliver scale economies and the improved efficiency of pooled and shared resources. The Government White Paper 'Our Health, Our Care, Our Say', released early in 2006, signalled a reinforced commitment to the wide area operational hub ideal, with the 'out-of-hospital' agenda now central to policy rationale as all of the home nations graduate towards a more integral and multi-disciplinary approach to the delivery of unplanned care.

Adastra now acts as the core operational and clinical IT system for all but a handful of the 90 or so operational hubs providing services across the UK. The Company also provides its system to 10 major out-of-hours schemes in the Netherlands, including a flagship service operating in the Hague.

In England, Adastra is working closely with Connecting for Health to implement out-of-hours access to the GP Summary Record, where a pilot programme is already under way; and to support the next stage in development of the Electronic Prescribing Service. The national project in Scotland to integrate the Electronic Care Summary record was successfully concluded at the end of 2006 and is now fully implemented. Adastra has additionally supported successful pilot implementation of the Welsh Emergency Health Record for out-of-hours presentation in Gwent; and a proving programme for the NICTIZ summary record capability being developed in the Netherlands.

In the next chapter of the Adastra history, August 2008 saw us become part of the Advanced Computer Software Plc Group, allowing us to realise our goal of improving patient flows and care by broadening our products and services.

Awarded Investors in People certification in 2004, Adastra now employs 135 staff and prides itself on looking after its customer and staff interests above all else, knowing that the business interest will then take care of itself.