Community Rehabilitation Made Smarter with Cellma
Table of Contents Help Others Discover – Click to Share! Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Table of Contents THE WAITING LIST PROBLEM: 90,049 patients were waiting more than 52 weeks for community services in January 2026 – 32.7% more than the 67,879 recorded in January 2025. 90,049 patients were waiting more than 52 weeks for community services in January 2026 – 32.7% more than the 67,879 recorded in January 2025. 90% of these waits were in children’s services, with 82% concentrated in community paediatrics. The pressure points, at a glance: Metric Figure Patients waiting 52+ weeks (Jan 2026) 90,049 Increase vs. January 2025 +32.7% Share of waits in children’s services 90% Share concentrated in community paediatrics 82% Discharge-ready patients facing a delay (Mar 2025) ~6 in 10 Community mental health users who waited too long 40% Waited 3+ months for first mental health treatment 33% Reported mental health deterioration while waiting 42% Adult social care waiting list (Mar 2025) 372,000 Growth in doctor numbers (5 years) +24% Growth in nurse numbers (5 years) +22% These numbers tell a clear story: community care is under pressure, and disconnected systems can make that pressure harder to manage. This is where Cellma comes in, connecting patient records, clinical teams, referrals, appointments and patient-facing digital services to support care beyond the hospital. Cellma’s approach also aligns with community rehabilitation and the NHS 10-Year Health Plan. Its three shifts – hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention, place greater emphasis on care delivered closer to home and supported by connected digital services. Neighbourhood health centres are expected to bring services such as rehabilitation, post-operative care, diagnostics and primary care together, while the NHS App is becoming an important digital front door for appointments, communication, advice and care planning. For community teams, moving care out of hospital must therefore be matched by moving information with the patient. With doctor numbers up 24% and nurse numbers 22% over five years, digital systems can also help teams make better use of clinical capacity while demand continues to rise. When Recovery Continues Beyond the Hospital For many patients, leaving hospital is not the end of treatment, it is the beginning of another stage of recovery. A patient recovering from a neurological condition, for example, may move between physiotherapy at home, occupational therapy at a community hub, speech and language therapy, GP reviews and social care support. Community Rehabilitation brings together this wide range of services, including: Physiotherapy Occupational therapy Speech and language therapy Neurorehabilitation Reablement Intermediate care Post-discharge recovery But the journey can quickly become complicated. Referrals may sit in one system, clinical notes in another, appointments in a third, while information is passed between teams through phone calls, emails or manual updates. A therapist needs the patient’s acute history. A community clinician needs to coordinate with social care. The patient needs to understand what happens next. Service managers need visibility of caseloads, waiting lists and capacity. When information is fragmented, continuity becomes harder, exactly when patients need it most. The pressure is not limited to adult services. Children and young people face long waits for therapy and neurodevelopmental assessment, while adult services contend with rising demand, workforce shortages and limited capacity. Adult social care waiting lists, which feed directly into rehabilitation and reablement pathways stood at an estimated 372,000 in March 2025. Delays can affect recovery, independence, return to work or school, and the wellbeing of carers. MENTAL HEALTH REHABILITATION: The CQC found that 40% of community mental health service users felt their wait was too long, 40% received no support while waiting, and 42% reported deterioration. Digital care cannot replace clinical capacity, but connected records, patient portals and digital communication can help teams coordinate care and keep patients engaged between appointments. The NHS Is Moving Care Closer to Home The direction for Community Rehabilitation is clear. The Better Care Fund is being reformed for 2026/27 to strengthen integrated services across discharge, intermediate care, rehabilitation and reablement. It also tracks how many people aged 65+ remain in the community 12 weeks after discharge into reablement, alongside a 4.4% uplift in NHS adult social care contributions. The goal is not simply faster discharge but coordinated support at home. Mental health is part of this shift, with plans for 24/7 open-access centres integrating crisis, community, rehabilitation and inpatient care. An initial rollout begins in 2026/27, supported by up to £120 million for dedicated mental health emergency departments. Meanwhile, NICE NG252, published in October 2025, calls for person-centred, lifelong and integrated rehabilitation across hospitals, communities and homes. It emphasises coordinated care, stronger cross-sector collaboration, emotional and cognitive wellbeing, social participation and local workforce development. KEY TAKEAWAY: Modern community rehabilitation needs a digital record that follows the patient, not the building. Cellma: Connecting Care Beyond the Hospital As an integrated EPR/HIMS platform, Cellma brings patient administration, clinical documentation, referrals, appointments, care plans, communications and reporting into one connected environment. Instead of adding another standalone tool to an already complex pathway, Cellma connects the clinical and operational sides of care, giving community and rehabilitation teams a digital foundation that can support the patient journey from hospital to home and beyond. One Patient Record Across the Care Journey A single patient record helps connect acute, community and other care settings around the same person. Clinicians can access relevant information rather than relying on disconnected documents, supporting continuity as patients move between hospital, home, community hubs and step-down services. For rehabilitation teams, this can support the full pathway from referral and assessment through goal setting, intervention, review, discharge and follow-up. Interoperability for Connected NHS Care Cellma supports open APIs and interoperability standards including HL7 and FHIR R4, helping healthcare organisations exchange information with other clinical systems, laboratories, imaging platforms and health information environments. Its NHS integration capabilities include CIS2, PDS, GP Connect, Summary Care Record, EPS and NHS e-RS, supporting identity, information sharing, prescribing and referral workflows. Cellma also supports clinical coding standards including SNOMED CT, ICD-10, ICD-11 and dm+d. This matters because
How Cellma Powers Better Home-Based Care for Patients Through Digital Innovation
Table of Contents Help Others Discover – Click to Share! Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Table of Contents THE INTEROPERABILITY GAP: In 2025, 93% of NHS provider organisations had an Electronic Patient Record — but only 30% had fully integrated, bi-directional data flows. In 2025, 93% of NHS provider organisations had an Electronic Patient Record, but only 30% had fully integrated, bi-directional data flows. District nurse numbers had fallen 43% between 2009 and 2024, from 7,643 to 4,322, while 100,100 NHS vacancies remained, including 25,600 nursing vacancies. The pressure points, at a glance: Metric Figure NHS providers with an EPR (2025) 93% Providers with fully integrated, bi-directional data flows 30% Decline in district nurse numbers (2009–2024) 43% NHS vacancies remaining 100,100 Nursing vacancies 25,600 Hospital bed days: medically fit for discharge ~11% Estimated cost of delayed discharges (2025/26) £2.7bn Virtual ward beds per 100,000 people (Mar 2025) 20 Admissions avoided via virtual wards (South East) 9,000 These numbers point to a clear problem: demand for care closer to home is rising, workforce capacity is under pressure, hospital capacity is constrained, and disconnected systems are making it harder to deliver safe, coordinated home based care for patients. From Hospital Corridors to the Patient’s Home The NHS is moving care closer to where people live. District nursing, community rehabilitation, virtual wards, hospital-at-home services, remote monitoring and end-of-life care are becoming increasingly important parts of the healthcare pathway. The NHS 10 Year Health Plan for England, published in July 2025, puts this direction at the centre of its strategy through three major shifts: ✓ Hospital to community ✓ Sickness to prevention ✓ Analogue to digital Home and community care sits directly at the intersection of all three. The plan also supports Neighbourhood Health Services, Integrated Neighbourhood Teams, virtual wards, earlier intervention and greater use of digital technology, AI and remote monitoring. For healthcare providers, this means technology cannot simply support what happens inside a hospital. It must connect the entire patient journey, from referral and assessment to home visits, monitoring, escalation, discharge and long-term follow-up. This is where Cellma fits. Why Home-Based Care for Patients Needs More Than an EPR Having an EPR is no longer enough. A district nurse visiting a patient at home may need access to their GP information, hospital history, medications, allergies, referrals, care plans, test results and previous community visits. A virtual ward team may also need real-time monitoring information. The patient may need to manage appointments, communicate with their care team or access relevant information through a patient portal. If these systems cannot communicate, clinicians are left searching across applications, manually entering information or relying on fragmented communication. THE RESEARCH SHOWS: Although 93% of NHS providers use an EPR, only 30% have fully integrated, bi-directional data flows. Similarly, all ICBs have commissioned virtual wards, but only 86% of providers report having hospital-at-home services operationally in place, and only around two-thirds of those can share data digitally for clinical decision-making. Cellma is designed around connected healthcare rather than isolated workflows. Its interoperability capabilities include: HL7 and FHIR integration for structured healthcare data exchange Open APIs and RESTful APIs to connect Cellma with external applications and services Integration with GP Connect to support access to relevant GP-held information Support for NHS e-RS for referrals and care pathways Shared Care Record connectivity to support joined-up information across care settings Integration with laboratory and imaging systems Support for standards including SNOMED CT, ICD-10, ICD-11 and dm+d Integration with NHS services including CIS2, PDS, SCR and EPS Patient-facing capabilities through Cellmaflex, including online booking, patient portals, secure messaging and digital interactions Together, these capabilities provide the digital foundation required for connected community and home-based pathways. Bringing the Patient Portal into Community Care A successful home-based model is not only about giving clinicians better tools. Patients need a digital front door too. A patient portal can give people greater visibility of their appointments, communications, care information and interactions with healthcare teams without requiring every interaction to begin with a phone call. For community services, this becomes particularly useful when patients are receiving ongoing care at home. Appointment management, digital questionnaires, document sharing and secure messaging can help patients remain involved in their care while reducing unnecessary administrative contact for stretched teams. Cellmaflex supports this patient-facing approach with features such as: ✓ Online booking ✓ Digital questionnaires ✓ Document upload ✓ Secure messaging ✓ Access to patient records ✓ Multi-factor authentication The NHS App is also becoming an increasingly important access point for digital healthcare. The research pack identifies self-referral, appointment management and access to care plans as growing uses of patient-facing digital tools, while highlighting the importance of digital inclusion. For community and district nursing services, connecting the clinical EPR with patient-facing services creates a more continuous digital journey—rather than treating the home visit as a separate episode of care. How Cellma Supports the Home-Based Care Journey A connected home-care pathway can involve several teams, systems and points of contact. Cellma brings these workflows together through a single patient record and connected clinical processes. 1. Referral and Identification Patients can enter a home-based pathway through a GP, hospital discharge team, community service or other referral route. Cellma’s PAS module and referral capabilities can support the movement of information from referral through assessment, helping teams work from structured patient information rather than fragmented paperwork. With interoperability through HL7, FHIR, APIs, GP Connect and NHS e-RS, information can move between relevant systems rather than remaining locked within one organisation. 2. Assessment and Care Planning Once a patient is referred, community nurses, therapists, GPs and other members of an Integrated Neighbourhood Team need a shared understanding of their needs. Cellma’s EPR module provides access to clinical information, documentation and care plans, giving professionals a connected view of the patient’s journey. WHY IT MATTERS: The number of people aged over 85 in England is projected to reach 2.6 million within 25 years, while the proportion of people aged over 65 living with two or more long-term