Aim To create and implement a system through which pre-hospital healthcare activity across an entire operational theatre could be made available in real-time to support healthcare delivery, governance and assurance activity.

Methods An IT-based system was created that could display, manage and integrate the pre-hospital healthcare activity on Op HERRICK 18. The system was based on the Defence Medical Services Common Assurance Framework and run through Microsoft Office SharePoint.

Results Pre-hospital healthcare activity was made available and visible across an operational theatre. This supported delivery, assurance and governance at any time. Activity from each medical facility could be integrated and display automatically improving theatre wide situational awareness. The availability of information resulted in a shift towards a more continuous process of assurance and governance rather than reliance on inherently threatening and increasingly intermittent inspection regimes.

Discussion The ability to review healthcare activity remotely at anytime significantly improves the validity of assurance possible for a deployed force. Governance activity can be more responsive and less reliant on the fixed timescale and datasets of reports from outlying medical facilities. However, assurance and governance authorities must not allow such a wealth of information to impact local leadership and innovation through a perception of, or actual, micro-management.