News in brief
Mandate delivered to NHS Commissioning Board: Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has delivered the first mandate from the government to the NHS, setting out priorities for the NHS Commissioning Board (NHS CB), reported National Health Executive. The mandate covers the next two years and details what patients in England can expect from GPs, hospitals and the wider NHS. The mandate focuses on helping people live longer, managing on-going physical and mental health conditions, helping patients recover from periods of injury or ill health, making sure people experience better care, and providing safe care. Mr Hunt said: “The NHS is one of the finest institutions in the world and we are working with health professionals to keep it that way.”
Commissioning Board gets £95m to deliver NHS Mandate: The incoming NHS CB will be handed a cash pot of £95 million for delivering the new NHS Mandate, reported Pharma Times. According to the Department of Health (DH) this is a historic, landmark moment for the health service; it signals a commitment to an NHS “that is able to meet patients’ needs and expectations in the face of growing demand”, and, for the first time, will allow the health service to be measured against what really matters to patients.
Providers to be judged on integration and deaths from poor care: HSJ (subscription required) has reported that under the new mandate, NHS organisations will be judged by whether patients report their care as being well integrated, and the number of deaths in hospital attributable to poor care. The government published a new NHS Outcomes Framework alongside the mandate. The mandate requires the NHS to improve against all indicators in the outcomes framework. The updated framework for 2013-14 includes a proposal to measure “hospital deaths attributable to problems in care” for different areas and organisations. The indicator does not yet exist and the framework says it “will be developed over the coming months”. It will increase the focus on patient safety and care effectiveness, particularly in hospitals.
Mandate aims to spark a ‘revolution in transparency’: The NHS will be required to measure and publish outcomes data for all major services by 2015, to enable commissioners and patients to make more informed choices about care providers, reported HSJ (subscription required). The mandate includes a tranche of new measures that it hopes will amount to a “revolution in transparency”. These include a re-announcement of last year’s pledge to allow all patients online access to their GP records by 2015, and a commitment to publish outcomes data for all major services by 2015, broken down to clinical commissioning group level, and by the organisation providing care.
UK to be ‘world leader’ on health technology, says Hunt: Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt told an audience at an Age UK conference that 100,000 people with long-term conditions will benefit from technology in 2013. Hunt kick started the roll-out of telehealth as a way of giving people with long-term conditions control over their own care. This followed the launch of the NHS Mandate where he announced that significant progress will be made towards three million people being able to benefit from telehealth by 2017. He confirmed that seven ‘pathfinders’ – NHS and local authority organisations including clinical commissioning groups – are to agree contracts with industry suppliers which will see 100,000 people benefit from telehealth in the course of next year. Leading technology companies will be supplying the NHS with the technologies and services at no upfront cost.
New approach for NHSmail2: The NHS CB is looking at using multiple suppliers to provide NHSmail2 using the G-Cloud procurement framework. NHSmail provides an email service to around half a million staff in a variety of health and care environments. Its successor – NHSmail2 – is being sponsored by the NHS CB and will be delivered from summer 2014. Deputy government chief information officer Liam Maxwell told EHI Live 2012 last week that the NHSmail re-procurement is “coming through the [Cabinet Office] controls process as we speak.”
NHS set to challenge ICO fine: An NHS trust is to challenge a monetary penalty notice issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in a case that could set an important precedent, reported Computer Weekly. The NHS trust, which has not been named, is to be the first public sector organisation to challenge the UK privacy watchdog in an appeal to the Information Tribunal. Lawyers acting on behalf of the trust plan to argue that the ICO acted unlawfully by fining the trust after it voluntarily reported the breach. The appeal is due to start in December.
NHS trust IT spending continues to balloon: A report from EHI Intelligence has revealed that NHS acute trusts in England will be spending £830 million a year on IT in four years time, as they respond to the axing of the National Programme for IT and other pressures, reported Computer World UK. The “Market by numbers” report shows that total IT spend in the sector will increase by 4.2 percent in 2012-2013, despite overall trust budgets remaining flat. The report says almost all categories of IT product spend will increase over the next five years, with significant increases for IT services, hardware and software, and smaller but “significant” increases for IT staff.
Birmingham outpatients goes paperless: The ICT director of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Stephen Chilton told delegates at EHI Live 2012 that more than 90% of outpatient consultations are done without paper, reported Healthcare Today. Chilton said the trust had created its own clinical portal and had nearly reached a “paperless” working environment. He said: “In excess of 90% of our outpatient consultations don’t require paper records anymore.”
Scotland gets serious about mobile: The Scottish government is creating a national framework worth up to £60m to provide the NHS and other public bodies with notebook and tablet computers, reported eHealth Insider. A tender placed in the Official Journal of the European Union is for the provision of notebook and tablet computing as well as accessories and services associated with the deployment of these devices. The duration of the framework agreement will be 15 months with an option to extend for up to two further 12-month periods. The value of a full 39-month contract would be between £27m and £60m.
Future Labs launches FlipPad medical-grade ruggedized case for iPad: Future Labs Group has launched FlipPad, a medical-grade ruggedized case for iPads which allows them to be used in hospital settings where hygiene and ruggedness are essential, reported British Journal of Healthcare Computing. FlipPad, which can be used with the iPad 2 and the new iPad HD, has been designed to pass tough standards for waterproofing and shock protection, and to be easy to clean with standard infection control sprays. Mike Casey, Future Labs Group CEO, said: “The NHS is increasingly looking to mobile technology to improve patient care and many healthcare organisations are turning to the iPad because of its large screen size, fast start up and good battery life.”
Major reduction in long NHS waits for operations: The BBC has reported a big fall in the number of people in England who have been waiting more than a year for NHS hospital treatment. Figures from the DH for September show the total has fallen to just over 1,600. In the same month last year it was more than 20,000. Ministers say the NHS is performing really well, but experts say most of the fall is down to better recording of the data. The latest update from the DH, for September 2012, shows that in addition to the fall in those waiting more than a year, the number waiting over six months for their procedure stands at just under 46,000 – down more than 60,000 compared with a year earlier.
UK GPs top for use of EMRs: The 2012 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey has revealed that more than two thirds of UK GPs use electronic medical records and can also order tests or prescriptions online, manage patient’s lists or generate patient information electronically, reported eHealth Insider. The survey carried out by 8,500 primary care doctors in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States, places the UK at the top of the table in their use of electronic records. Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt said: “The NHS is one of the finest institutions in the world, but some areas need improvement. I am pleased that our GPs are doing very well when it comes to using electronic medical records and enabling patients to make appointments online.”
And the winner is…
We are pleased to announce Andrew Park Young from University Hospital of Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust and Shona Campbell from University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust as the winners of our competition ‘pin the tail on the cow’. Thanks to everyone that took part in our competition at EHI Live 2012. Click here to view our picture gallery of EHI Live 2012.
Opinion
Online health records: Can integrity be maintained?
In this week’s blog in PublicTechnology.net, David Downing, health specialist, SAS UK praises the focus on the implementation of electronic health records in the new NHS Mandate but questions how the accuracy and integrity of the records will be maintained.
“Information is only helpful if it is accurate and up-to-date… For example, a recent report by the Health and Social Care Information Centre found that over 20% of acute data held by hospital trusts is inaccurate and that duplication of patient records remains frequent.”
He argues that although the mandate states that the NHS Commissioning Board should work with ‘relevant organisations to set national information standards to support integration’, the scope of this task shouldn’t be underestimated.
Downing adds: “With the previously planned national NHS database it would have been possible to ensure accuracy of patient records at a central ‘master’ level. With the new approach it is essential that plans include thorough consideration of the maintenance of patient records. If this is to be handled at a local level then we may find that administrative staff need significant training relating to the importance of data governance and that the implementation of technology needed to ensure high-levels of data accuracy requires further thought.”
Protecting the NHS brand or devaluing it?
The much-criticised appointment of the NHS’ £97,000-a-year “head of brand” this week leads Blair Mcpherson of HSJ to challenge the organisation’s current business model and take inspiration from a well-known global franchise model. McPherson argues that it is absolutely right that the NHS logo is protected from unwarranted use, particularly by private healthcare providers masquerading as our ‘beloved NHS’.
However, he questions why NHS chief executive, Sir David Nicholson, said that with the growing number of private healthcare providers it’s important that they “understand what it means to be part of the NHS, the culture and the values, and treat their patients accordingly”?
“When the chief executive of the NHS talks of protecting the blue and white logo, he seems to mean that we need to ensure any private company using it has signed up to the culture and values of the NHS.
“Just like McDonald’s then. If you want to use their distinctive golden arches you have to sign up to their company values and treat customers accordingly.”
Time for radical change to shift power to patients
Christina Patterson, patient, writer and columnist for The Independent contributes to this week’s King’s Fund ‘Time to Think Differently’ blog. Christina describes the urgent and critical need to reconfigure the ‘patient – health service’ relationship. She likens the current ‘relationships’ that patients have with the health service to that of a bad parent and child relationship.
She writes: “Hospitals aren’t what you need to heal the sick. Hospitals are where you go when you need to have a tumour cut out, or to have a blood vessel moved from one bit of a heart to another bit of a heart, or if you’ve got an infection that needs to be monitored all day and all night. But hospitals aren’t much good if you’ve got dementia, or diabetes, or smoke a lot, or if you’re just very fat.
“What sick people need is a partnership. We need to have a relationship with our doctor, or a ‘nurse practitioner’ at a local health centre, who we see before we get ill. We need to work, with that doctor, or that nurse, on developing plans to keep us well. We need to be able to look at those plans, and at our progress, and at our medical records, online. We need to be able to email that doctor, or nurse, to ask questions and get advice. And when we need to see him, or her, we need to be able to make an appointment online, and at a time that fits in with our work. Since many of us have to work evenings and weekends, we will expect the people who are in partnership with us (in doctors’ surgeries, and health centres, and hospitals) to work evenings and weekends, too.”
Highland Marketing Blog
In this week’s blog, industry advisor Jeremy Nettle provides readers with a guide to the NHS Mandate and highlights the opportunities for healthcare IT suppliers.
