Made up of four hospital sites, the NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group (UHLG) provides general, emergency, and specialised care services to more than 2 million people in the North West. Founded in 2024 with an aim to improve care, UHLG employs over 16,800 colleagues, making it one of the largest employers in the region. Each site has evolved to specialise in a unique area to offer streamlined care services.
Aintree University Hospital: The only adult major trauma site in Cheshire and Merseyside, which also provides regional services including an award-winning stroke facility.
Broadgreen Hospital: Home to several elective surgical, diagnostic, and treatment services, as well as specialist patient rehabilitation.
The Royal Liverpool University Hospital: Focusing on complex planned care and specialist services.
Liverpool Women’s Hospital: One of only two specialist trusts in the UK dedicated to the health of women and infants, responsible for delivering over 7,000 babies per year.
Neill White, Mortuary, Bereavement & Medical Examiner’s Office Manager at UHLG is responsible for the morgues across the former three sites. High on his agenda is maintaining the dignity of the deceased through rigorous and effective temperature control in the refrigerated chambers in the mortuary. To accomplish this, Neill utilises Monika’s temperature monitoring system across all three sites, which he explains is essential:
“Monika has been a vital part of the temperature control over our three sites. This system not only alerts staff via telephone, text, and email that there may be an issue with the refrigeration system, it can also help identify abnormal fluctuations or human error caused by doors not being properly closed for example. We can also look back at issues which may be recurrent, indicating appliances are consistently failing due to age, malfunctions, or simple inadequacy.”
This is achieved through the ability to set a predetermined safe temperature range. Should a unit move outside this scope, staff receive alerts, enabling them to take corrective action before it becomes a larger issue or identifying where equipment upgrades are required. Monika’s discreet monitors feed live data back to a centralised dashboard, which can be used to generate fully auditable reports, a function Neill finds very helpful:
“The online system lets you monitor, test, and produce reports at the click of a button – ideal for quality and health and safety meetings.”
Monika’s smart cloud-connected system is also ideal for multisite managers to compare performance and manage on-call staff, as Neill explains:
“The Monika system has helped us by the doing all the work; alerting, reporting, and monitoring all three sites and collectively feeding into one system. This can be accessed at home via any computer or smart phone, which aids my on-call staff look at the system before coming into work out of hours. Various calls can be made before that decision is made to come in.”
As a member of the Association of Anatomical Pathology Technology (AAPT) – the professional body for anatomical pathology technologists employed in hospital and public mortuaries in the UK – Monika is well positioned to help mortuaries maintain respect and dignity of the deceased. Additionally, Monika’s place on the G-Cloud 14 framework enables public sector organisations to partner with Monika right away rather than submitting tender, for a seamless integration. Neill remarked how simple it was to get Monika up and running:
“Installation of the Monika system at all three sites didn’t interfere with the department, contractors and management worked with us closely to ensure things went smoothly. Explanation of the system was easy to follow, and further tech support is simple to discuss with the support team.”
Beyond the system in the mortuary, UHLG also employs Monika throughout their sites in a foodservice, pharmacy, and ward setting. For further details about Liverpool Women’s please click here.