News in brief
- Medical revalidation of doctors to start in December: Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced that medical revalidation, the process by which all doctors who are licensed with the General Medical Council (GMC) to demonstrate that they are up to date and fit to practise, will start in December. The system will help doctors keep up to the standard expected of them by ensuring they stay up-to-date with the latest techniques, technologies and research. Hunt said: “We want to have the best survival rates in Europe for the major killer diseases. Doctors save lives every day and making sure they are up to speed with the latest treatments and technologies will help them save even more. This is why a proper system of revalidation is so important.” In an interview with the BBC he added: “Doctors found to be failing will be given a chance to identify and correct areas of weakness before they are stopped from practicing.”
- Hospital activity ‘will rise’: An HSJ/Capsticks (subscription required) survey has revealed that four out of five hospital chief executives believe their trust will do more work this financial year than it did in 2011-12. Despite the government’s aim of shifting activity from hospitals, only one of 59 respondents to the survey expected to do less work than last year. The results strike a blow to a central tenet of the Department of Health’s £20bn quality, innovation, productivity and prevention programme, which seeks the removal of activity from the acute sector to the community, where it is thought care will be cheaper and more convenient for patients.
- Cost of NHS reforms rises by £300m: Jeremy Hunt has revealed that the NHS reforms will cost £300m more than originally estimated, reported GP. In a written ministerial statement, Hunt said that the implementation of the Health and Social Care Act in England would cost ‘in the range of’ £1.5bn to £1.6bn. Redundancy costs are expected to be around £630m, he said: “The Department of Health’s (DH) original impact assessment, revised last year, said the implementation costs would be in the region of £1.2bn to £1.3bn.”
- Outside groups could vie with NICE over guidance: Professional organisations and interest groups could take on a formal role producing clinical commissioning guidance – potentially side stepping the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. HSJ (subscription required) reported that senior figures drawing up the process for producing commissioning guidance in the new system are seeking to increase national service requirements, as control is handed to local GP groups. Two approaches are under consideration. In one, commissioning guidance could be produced by outside bodies, then approved, formalised and published by NICE. In the other, the NHS Commissioning Board could commission advice directly from other bodies, sidestepping NICE altogether. The outside groups most likely to contribute are royal colleges and professional associations, but they could also include charities.
- Liverpool NHS launches ‘secure mailbox’ record system: Liverpool Community Health NHS Trust has launched a new pilot record system to help speed up neonatal screening results and to also help ensure greater accuracy, reported Public Service. The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust will work alongside EMIS to develop a secure mailbox which will receive electronic neonatal results. This system will input results directly to patient records avoiding the need to replicate. Peter Woods, information management and technology senior project manager for Informatics Merseyside, said: “The new mailbox system would make the results reporting process much easier. The full electronic switchover will take place in January 2013.”
- NHS 24 takes new approach to telehealth: NHS 24 has committed to launch all telehealth solutions on three channels – smartphones, tablets and digital TV, reported eHealth Insider. NHS Scotland’s online and telephone-based advice service has also committed to only launch telehealth solutions that are able to support multiple conditions. At the Healthcare Efficiency through Technology conference last week, NHS 24 medical director Professor George Crooks said: “Scotland won’t deploy any solution that manages just one condition on telehealth.”
- Electronic maternity data capture solution could save NHS £16m a year: Anoto – a digital pen technology company has joined forces with the Perinatal Institute (PI) to devise a new electronic maternity data capture system that aims to revolutionise the collection of maternity information, reported Building Better Healthcare. The new system, E-Preginfo, provides an end-to-end solution for complete data capture of PI pregnancy notes using digital pens. The solution has already been successfully trialled within six maternity units across the West Midlands and has received positive feedback from clinicians.
- Morecambe 18 months from Lorenzo EPR: According to a senior team from University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, Lorenzo is within 18-months of being a full electronic patient record (EPR) offering a best in class system to NHS trusts. Steve Fairclough, the head of health informatics at the trust, told eHealth Insider: “We’re not far off having a full EPR.” Lorenzo is also the foundation for the trust’s ambitious eHospital strategy, which is designed to make the organisation fully paperless and integrated with the wider health economy.
- Social care cash cuts could hit hospitals: A study carried out by the Nuffield Trust has warned if funding for social care is cut back, people may have no option but to use hospital care, reported Public Service. The study – which tracked how over 73,000 people used publicly funded health and social care services during the last months of their lives – also found “considerable variation” around the UK. Co-author of the report, the Nuffield Trust’s head of research Dr Martin Bardsley, said: “People are very vulnerable in the last months of their lives, and achieving appropriate and well co-ordinated care across health and social care is critical. Our study suggests how social care might be effectively substituted for hospital care for this group of people.”
- GPs’ confidence knocked by reforms: Healthcare reform continues to affect GP confidence as two thirds of GPs see CCGs as negative for the NHS, reported Practice Business. According to the latest Lloyds TSB Commercial Healthcare Confidence Index there has been a slow decline in the confidence of GPs in the second half of 2012. The survey revealed that the last six months has been a particularly difficult period for GPs, following proposed changes to pension provision and the formal passing of the Health and Social Care Act.
- NHS referral to treatment waiting times data: The number of waits for treatment for more than 26 and 52 weeks has fallen to the lowest level since records began, the DH has said. Also published this week, by the DH, is its annual report and accounts for 2011 to 2012. This report provides parliament and the public with an account of how the DH has spent the resources allocated to it. It provides commentary on departmental performance, structural and transition changes and progress against the structural reform plan.
Opinion
‘NHS must tell patients about data and privacy breaches’
This week FairWarning was invited by Dame Fiona Caldicott to present to the Information Governance Review Evidence Session on new and emerging technologies. FairWarning’s testimony outlined how privacy is a globally recognised patient need and right and that:
“Any obstacle to the free flow of information between care providers and patients, such as those caused by privacy concerns, can prevent patients from receiving the best possible care. In a digital environment, we believe that robust privacy and security policies should be bolstered by innovative technological solutions that can enhance the ability to protect data. This includes requiring that all electronic record systems adopt adequate security protections such as encryption, audit trails and access controls.”
To follow up on presentation of its evidence, Kurt Long, founder and CEO FairWarning, wrote an article for Public Service outlining why he believes healthcare leaders must also become privacy leaders into the future and that change is needed in the NHS to make this happen.
“I believe that there is an urgent need for the following measures to be implemented to safeguard patients’ right to privacy in the UK, they include: making healthcare providers fully accountable for breach disclosure to patients and breach notification to the ICO; mandating trusts to build patient privacy into NHS IT systems by enforcing the mandatory use of audit trails across all healthcare applications; the introduction of robust standards for audit trails and reinforcing a culture of privacy in the NHS through education and awareness.”
Florence Nightingale-the healthcare IT visionary
Shane Tickell, CEO of IMS MAXIMS discusses how data, computer systems and technology can be complex but some of the biggest issues in healthcare are actually caused by the simplest things.
Tickell goes on to describe a recent experience at an NHS organisation that is considered by most to have implemented an electronic patient record. However, Shane’s blog shows an image of a family member’s vital signs being recorded on a paper towel rather than electronically at the point of care or even on a piece of paper!
“In this instance, the name [on the towel] was spelt incorrectly, despite it being written clearly above my relative’s bed. This entire process left significant room for transcription error and misinterpretation.
“It would be easy to say ‘implement technology, it will solve the NHS’s problems’ but that is clearly not the task at hand. Instead we need to make access to the relevant patientin formation much more easily available. Technology needs to be uncomplicated with the correct training, attitudes, processes and leadership in place to help the end users.”
Health and social care at the party conferences: what does the mood music tell us?
Senior fellow, Social Care and Local Government at the King’s Fund, Richard Humphries, neatly summarises the rhetoric, pledges and policy signals to fall out of the recent party conference season in terms of health and social care agendas:
“For the Conservatives that meant David Cameron emphasising his party’s commitment to the values of the NHS and highlighting the coalition’s pledge to protect its budget. Labour’s pledge to repeal the Health and Social Care Act went down well with the party faithful, as did the strong commitment by Shadow Secretary of State Andy Burnham to introduce a completely integrated system of care. Care Services Minister for the Liberal Democrats Norman Lamb restated his long standing vision of integration across health and social care and the Secretary of State said that in future, integration is going to be as important as competition in the system.
“Two very significant policy signals were made over the conference season. The first reports a further £10billion cut in welfare benefits as an extension to the current spending review period. This will make it easier for the coalition to extend its pledge to maintain real terms spending on the NHS (though benefit cuts are likely to add to its pressures). The second was the slipped-out announcement that the council tax freeze is to be extended for a third year, at a cumulative cost of nearly £2billion (compared to the £1.7billion price tag for Dilnot – so no hand wringing about ‘hard choices’ here). This will only add to the woes of local councils as they struggle to manage the widening gap between social care needs and resources.
“The next key milestone will be the Chancellor’s autumn statement on December 5th that will set the scene for next year’s Spending Review. So it is economic prospects, not conference speeches, that will be more decisive in shaping future policy.”
NHS Information Strategy: Patient feedback and social media
Andrew Jackson, healthcare IT consultant and social media professional at Dell, has written a blog for Computer World UK about the NHS Information Strategy, patient feedback and social media.
“This digital future lies at the heart of the NHS Information Strategy, which seeks to transform our experience of care by using feedback from patients, users and communities to improve services. With 77% of British households connected to the internet and 59% regularly using social networks, online feedback will become increasingly important.
“Changing attitudes to social media are perhaps best illustrated by Patient Opinion, a non-profit organisation which allows patients to provide feedback on their experiences of care and health service staff to respond. Resulting service improvements are reported, moving closer to the full integration of social media into care.”
Highland Marketing blog
In this week’s blog Mark Venables discusses how wise investment in PR and marketing can really pay dividends.
