The first round of recipients for NHS England's Nursing Technology Fund have been announced.
Around a quarter of the projects were appointed to community trusts and the majority of these were aimed at enhancing mobile working in the community for district nurses, community nurses and midwives.
In this first round of funding allocations, 75 trusts have been awarded funding for 86 projects. These include Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust receiving £54,000 to improve mobile working for community nurses, North West London Hospitals who have been awarded £121,000 for community midwifery mobile working and The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, which will use the funding to deploy tablet technology across the community nursing teams.
Anne Crompton, deputy chief nurse at The Rotherham Foundation Trust said: 'We're delighted that we have been successful in our application for this funding.
'The use of technology helps us to be even more efficient when it comes keeping notes and records up to date. Being able to complete these tasks quickly, efficiently and, ultimately, accurately means that we can spend more dedicated time with patients to further enhance their experience,' she added.
Using tablets and mobile technology can improve record keeping and reduce paperwork, meaning a community nurse can work on the go in between patients.
NHS England received around 300 Expressions of Interest (EOI) for the 2014/2015 funding. The information provided across the EOIs will be submitted to build a picture of future demand. This will inform the design of the prospectus and application process for the second-round funding,.The intention is to publish the prospectus and launch the second-round by June 2014.
The Nursing Technology Fund was first announced in October 2012 by David Cameron to support nurses, midwives and health visitors to make better use of digital technology in all care settings, in order to deliver safer, more effective and more efficient care.
The funding was allocated to providers in two rounds. The first round, for £30million, was for funding to be spent in 2013/2014. Applications for the first round of funding opened in December 2013. In total, 226 applications were received from 139 Trusts.