“HERE comes Pink Man. Quick. Grab him!” was an oft-repeated phrase Mustafa Mohamed heard at the start of a switch-over to electronic patient records at Ealing Hospital and its sister sites.

The start of the Cerner EPR rollout had clinical staff seeking help as they came to terms with the new system.

Mustafa is one of more than 300 floor-walkers available at a moment’s notice across hospital sites in north-west London.

They provide ‘elbow support’ until nearly 9,000 staff are comfortable using the system.

Their numbers are being reduced week by week as staff familiarise themselves, but they initially wore pink T-shirts to make themselves easily identifiable.

“I was initially dealing with about 50 inquiries a day but I enjoy helping people,” said the veteran of several EPR rollouts around the country.

Ealing is closer to Mustafa's heart than his previous assignments, having been born in the hospital. He also lives just around the corner.

“I'm a local lad and it's great to come and work here,” he said. “The hospital still has a community, which is nice, and the rollout here has gone well.

“I bumped into one of my old teachers in outpatients the other day and then found one of the A&E nurses was in the same year as me at school.”

So how does he calm the sometimes frazzled nerves of staff who can’t remember how to find a patient record?

“I just reassure people it is an easy fix and that they will get the hang of it,” he said.

“Practice makes perfect at the end of the day. I see staff who were hesitant a few weeks ago just flying around the system now.”