News in brief
- Jeremy Hunt replaces Andrew Lansley as health secretary: Earlier this week Jeremy Hunt was appointed as health secretary, replacing Andrew Lansley, in a ministerial reshuffle. Mr Hunt’s promotion from the post of culture secretary comes despite the huge controversy in the spring about his office’s involvement with Rupert Murdoch’s News International group. Mr Hunt told the BBC his new job would be a “huge task”. He said: “I’m extremely honoured. It’s the biggest privilege of my life.” Three of the department’s other ministers have also been replaced. Plus this week, north of the border Alex Neil replaced Nicola Sturgeon as the Scottish health secretary.
- Department of Health plans new NHS electronic staff record system: The Department of Health (DH) has issued a pre-tender for a framework agreement contract to provide an electronic staff record system and pension scheme administration services. The current contract with McKesson for the provision of the NHS electronic staff record (ESR) will come to an end on 31 August 2014. A supplier conference is to be held on 18th September to discuss the opportunity.
- Department of Health signs deal with CSC: CSC has announced that it has signed a four year contract with the DH to deliver the Lorenzo patient administration system and other ICT solutions. Health minister Simon Burns said that the new agreement will save taxpayers over £1bn which will be reinvested in patient care and front line services. Neither company have given an overall value for the deal, however CSC will receive a payment of approximately £68 million, representing “payment for value delivered to date, a net settlement amount for mutual claims of the parties and removal of exclusivity to provide a flexible market driven approach.” CSC will retain responsibility for rolling out its Lorenzo electronic patient record system, currently being used by 10 NHS organisations in the North, Midlands and East of England. The new arrangement will run until July 2016.
- North Somerset integration plan hits the rocks: HSJ (subscription required) has reported that due to the scale of the financial challenge involved, plans to create a new integrated foundation trust in North Somerset are looking increasingly unlikely. Weston Area Health Trust, North Somerset Community Partnership and North Somerset Council have been working on a plan to form an integrated care organisation, however in an email sent on behalf of the transition board, which includes representatives from all three organisations as well as local commissioners, council chief executive Graham Turner acknowledged that it was proving difficult.
- Nurses warned not to use own phones for work: The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has warned nurses to avoid the temptation to use their own mobile phones for work. The college said that if nurses needed to use their phones regularly for work their employers should provide them and advised nurses to be aware of the risks when using smartphone applications to make clinical decisions, or record and send patient information. Although the RCN agrees that smartphones are useful tools, which allow nurses to communicate, photograph wounds, make calculations and access guidelines and information via the internet – they said nursing staff should not “bear the brunt of costs” of work related phone usage. It called on NHS organisations to supply equipment where staff routinely needed to use mobile devices.
- Thirty-three PCTs get EPS R2 approval: The Department of Health (DH) has announced that a further 33 Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) have been approved to roll-out Release 2 of the Electronic Prescriptions Service. Once the three-month notice period ends on 1st December the total amount of PCTs will have reached 116. PCTs must apply for secretary of state directions to roll out EPS R2, which allows GPs to sign a prescription electronically and send it directly to a nominated pharmacy. Other PCTs wanting to apply for directions must do so by 21 September. A full list of the 33 PCTs can be found on the DH website.
- HL7 standards set free: EHI has reported that, Health Level Seven International has announced that it is going to make its standards for the electronic exchange of health information free from 2013. At present only members of HL7 International are able to access the standards and guidelines created by volunteers that enable computers to talk to each other and share healthcare information. Malcolm Newbury, supplier co-chair of Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise, which promotes HL7 as one of the methods of improving the way computer systems share information, said that the fees associated with the standards have been “holding back innovation in healthcare.”
- Edinburgh dementia patients to be tracked: The City of Edinburgh Council is trialling a scheme alongside housing, care and community services provider Bield, to see if satellite technology can be used to prevent people with dementia from getting lost or into difficulties. Users wear a device on their wrist like a watch or carry it in their pockets. The device triggers an alarm to a call handling centre if they go out of a pre-determined geographic area called a safe zone. Seven people are piloting the GPS Safe Walking project, which is being reviewed by researchers at Edinburgh University to determine how it could be further developed in the capital and used elsewhere in Scotland.
- Southampton University leads project to develop IT as a utility: Research Councils UK (RCUK) is providing £1.5m to a consortium of UK universities to establish a research network to develop ‘IT as a Utility′ (ITaaU). The project is one of the four sub-themes of the RCUK Digital Economy Programme. The idea of IT as a utility comes from the ever-increasing connected, digitally driven society in which people use broadband and mobile networks to access applications ranging from unlimited storage email accounts, to social networking on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc, to web-based services for managing and sharing documents, music and photographs.
- Department of Health launches webchats on licensing and procurement: The Department of Health (DH) has announced that it will run a series of webchats that will cover licensing, procurement regulations and continuity of services during the public consultation period on different aspects of sector regulation. The first webchat on licensing and procurement will take place on Thursday 13 September with Sebastian Habibi, deputy director, Competition Management, along with other DH sector regulation policy experts. It will start at 2.45pm.
Opinion
Transforming health and social care – Can the chrysalis become a butterfly
In this week’s blog, Professor Chris Ham of the King’s Fund discusses the Fund’s latest report – Transforming the delivery of health and social care, which argues that current models of care rely too much on acute hospitals and care homes and pay too little attention to community services that support people in their own homes.
In his blog Professor Ham argues that health and social care services need to learn from evolutionary processes in biology, if innovation at the scale and pace needed is to occur.
“By extension, outmoded models of health and social care need to be decommissioned to create space for new and more appropriate ones to establish.”
He adds there is a strong case for making it easier for new innovative providers to enter the market and says that “this means that politicians must change their attitude to risk-taking and encourage active experimentation and testing of new approaches.
“Another important ingredient is to harness the creativity and skills of staff working in health and social care and the NHS must invest heavily in training and development and supporting innovation to occur ‘from within’.”
He also emphasises that the changes needed in health and social care do not depend simply on searching for the “next big idea” and that “too much attention is paid to invention and not enough to replication.”
Solving our health care crisis: Does the answer lie in social media and the internet?
In US online Health 2.0 News, guest blogger Henry DePhillips MD, chief medical officer at Audax Health reflects on the cost of healthcare in the US and asks if the current model is sustainable, given their trillions in national deficit almost matches annual healthcare spend; annual spending continues to grow and; population health remains on the decline. Dr DePhillips suggests healthcare take a leaf out of other industries’ books and considers social media as a means to communicate and educate patients; given its meteoric rise in popularity, interest and impact amongst consumers over the last few years.
“Most health care communications and interactions remain technical, confusing, time consuming and downright impersonal. Yet consumers both want and expect health information and engagement to be available at the tap of a finger. They want information that is tailored to them and their unique health situation. They want the ability to pose questions and connect with others like them as well as medical professionals in a secure, anonymous environment – and most importantly, they want it real-time. Lastly, to maintain the motivation to reach their health goals and remain active in their own wellbeing, consumers need incentivised solutions that are rewarding and engaging, and that meet them where they already spend their time: on the Internet and on mobile devices.
“Similarly, health care providers need innovative solutions that help them move the needle toward healthy outcomes, and more accurate, thorough insight into the lifestyles of their members and patients.
“Put simply, the key to change lies applying the same technologies consumers have welcomed into all other aspects of their lives – social networking, search engines, personalization technologies and game mechanics –to drive what has been largely elusive in health care: consumer engagement.”
Local schemes fall behind in NHS’ drive for efficiency
After obtaining the DH’s QIPP tracker covering the whole of England, HSJ reporter David Williams analysed the true performance of the NHS’ efficiency drive. The set of 10 documents compiled by strategic health authorities shows many areas are falling behind on one or more aspects of their local quality, innovation, productivity and prevention plans with just under half of all savings across the country come from local innovation.
The tracker, which was obtained by HSJ through a series of Freedom of Information requests, covers the first quarter of 2012-13, giving detailed assessments of each of the 53 local QIPP plans. It reveals that Primary Care Trusts anticipate savings worth a total of £13bn from 2011-12 to 2014-15. It revealed that local QIPP plans are being judged on their ability to account for half of the total local savings challenge for the next three years. The remainder is to be saved through national initiatives such as pay freezes or cuts to the tariff paid to NHS providers.
Awards
Healthcare IT champion – the final six
The second round of voting has opened for this year’s Healthcare IT Champion of the Year, with six nominees still in the running. Nominees include Christine Walters, associate director of IM&T, The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust and Neil Darvill, director of health informatics, St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. If you have not already voted or your first nominee did not get through, there is the opportunity to vote again for one of the remaining six. The second round of voting will close at 4pm on 14 September, with the winner announced at the Awards’ dinner on 4 October. Click here to vote for your Healthcare IT Champion of the Year.
Highland Marketing blog
In this week’s blog Myriam McLoughlin discusses the controversy over the appointment of Jeremy Hunt as the new health secretary and asks – will he make history within the NHS?
