Onboarding Drop-In Updates - 18 Aug & 1 Sep
Clinical engagement and bespoke sessions
We’ve had some really fruitful conversations about how we can promote NIR more widely with clinical groups and Royal Colleges, as well as how regions may be able to leverage NIR to support areas such as international MDT working.
Building on those discussions, our newly appointed Tiger Team Coordinator is looking at arranging bespoke sessions around key topics, including Clinical Safety. We’ll keep you updated as these develop.
If there are other topics you think would benefit from a dedicated session, or there are specific areas you would like us to cover within a Clinical Safety session, please get in touch with the NIR Delivery Team at england.nirdelivery@nhs.net.
Clinical engagement is now part of the engagement pipeline
We’re also bringing clinical engagement more directly into the standard NIR engagement pipeline.
Dr Joe Barnett, NIR Clinical Lead, will now be involved in our initial engagement meetings with Trusts and is also happy to support organisations where initial engagement has already taken place.
As part of the engagement process, alongside supplier involvement in either the initial or subsequent meetings, we will now also arrange 1:1 sessions between Joe and relevant Trust clinical teams. This gives clinical colleagues an opportunity to discuss NIR directly, explore the clinical use cases and ask questions specific to their services.
If you would like to arrange a session with Joe proactively, rather than waiting for it to come through the engagement pipeline, email england.nirdelivery@nhs.net and we’ll get one arranged.
Regional sharing connections vs direct Trust connections
A common theme in recent questions has been the difference between connecting NIR through an existing regional image-sharing arrangement and connecting directly at Trust level.
We just want to reiterate that the NIR Service can support connections at different levels, depending on the local architecture and the most appropriate connection approach. NIR can connect to compliant supplier solutions involved in diagnostic image and report sharing, including PACS, RIS, VNA and EHR systems.
We’ve published an Onboarding Crib Sheet to help Trusts and organisations prepare for taking part in NIR. It sets out the key information needed for both the funding application and the onboarding process.
NIR Funding Application Crib Sheet_Sep2026.pdf (266.9 KB)
The crib sheet helps organisations think through:
- their proposed connection approach to NIR
- the systems and suppliers involved
- local resource requirements
- governance activities
- how information will flow between systems
Using the crib sheet early should help organisations understand what information is needed, have more productive conversations with suppliers, identify risks and dependencies earlier, and make the funding and onboarding process smoother and quicker.
We’d encourage you to use the Onboarding Crib Sheet as a practical resource in conversations about whether a regional sharing connection, direct Trust connection, or another technical route is most appropriate.
Image sharing discussion in Onboarding AOB
There’s also an interesting thread developing in the Onboarding AOB discussion around image sharing, with some useful questions and perspectives being raised by the group.
We want to make sure we give this a considered and consistent response, so the NIR Product Team will review the discussion and bring an official response back to the group.
Please do continue to contribute to the thread in the meantime — it’s a useful opportunity for us to work through the topic collaboratively.