News in brief
- Diabetes hits an all-time high: Figures show the number of prescriptions for treating diabetes in England has topped 40 million. Data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre has revealed that this is a 50% rise in six years and a 6.1% (2.3m) rise on the number of items prescribed in 2010-11. Health officials are warning of the financial impact on the NHS. More than 2.5m people in England have been diagnosed with diabetes, the number is set to reach 4.2m by 2025.
- Allscripts wins multi-million pound EPR contract at Salford Royal: Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust has chosen Allscripts to supply its new electronic patient record system. The five-year contract, which will cover the implementation of the company’s Sunrise Clinical Manager is thought to be worth between £5-10m. Dr Bob Young, a consultant at the trust, said in a statement that the Allscripts EPR will provide one central and secure location for patient records, allowing clinician’s access in all stages of a patient’s care. The trust aims to migrate 14m clinical letters and approximately 100m diagnostic results before the system is up and running in September 2013.
- DH unveils licencing and competition plans: HSJ (subscription required) has reported that Monitor, the healthcare sector regulator, will have the power to direct commissioners to “withdraw or vary” tenders that breach competition rules, under regulations laid out in the 2012 Health Act. The regulator will only investigate breaches of rules on procurement, choice or conflict of interests where it receives a formal complaint, but it will have the power to investigate potential anti-competitive conduct “on its own initiative”.
- PCT and SHA leaders to be stripped of ‘management responsibility’ in October: NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson has announced that primary care trusts and strategic health authority leaders are to be stripped of their “management responsibility” for NHS delivery and planning. This comes more than six months ahead of the organisations’ abolition, reports HSJ (subscription required). The responsibility will be taken on early by senior leaders appointed to the NHS Commissioning Board and NHS Trust Development Authority. Sir David said the arrangements would be discussed with leaders in each locality and put in place from the 1st October 2012.
- NHS hospital partnership decision delayed: An eagerly awaited decision on whether an NHS hospital can seek a tie-up with a private sector partner, potentially reviving charges that the coalition is seeking to “privatise” the NHS, has been delayed. The board at George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton, Warwickshire had expected a verdict by the end of July, the Department of Health has advised them that there will be a delay in the assessment of its outline business case. It is hoped that a decision will be made by October this year.
- Regulator grants conditional approval for ground-breaking PFI buyout: An NHS foundation trust has been given conditional approval for a “novel and contentious” plan to buy out its private finance initiative contracts with a £120m loan from a local authority. Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust told HSJ (subscription required) that it had received in-principle, approval from regulator Monitor at the end of last week. It is hoped that a deal will be approved and completed before the start of the next financial year.
- HSCIC releases prescribing data for GP practices: As part of the government′s Open Data Strategy the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) has released the first batch of historical data on GP practice prescribing. Since September 2011 HSCIC has been releasing GP practice-level prescribing data each month and now historical data covering the period June 2010-August 2011 will be made available over the next two months. The data, which includes the total number of prescription items prescribed and then dispensed, does not contain patient identifiable data or list individual prescriptions. The data will be available in CSV format.
- Wearable tech market ‘worth billions’: IMS Research has reported that the market for wearable technology is expected to exceed $6 billion by 2015. The demand for devices is currently concentrated around a number of products that are used for healthcare, medical monitoring, fitness and wellbeing. The report, ‘World Market for Wearable Technology – A Quantitative Market Assessment – 2012’, finds that the most popular devices in the market tend to offer functions such as transmitting vital signs and the monitoring of user performance.
- Broadband speed will double in up to 7,000 GP practices by next year: The Department of Health plans to install 21 DSL technology in up to 7,000 GP practices. The upgrade will allow GPs broadband access at double the current speed. The project was funded by Connecting for Health and will be delivered by BT. The NHS Informatics Business Plan 2012/13 says the update will be rolled out to 70% of practices by March 2013.
- NHS private patients at risk of being overcharged: The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has warned that private patients in the NHS are at risk of being overcharged. The OFT said a whistle-blower had disclosed evidence that suggested that eight NHS trusts had exchanged emails containing “commercially sensitive information” about treatment charges. The OFT said it would be writing to all NHS hospitals which operate private health units to warn them that they could be in breach of competition law if they share such information.
- National Quality Board set out how to improve quality in the new health system: The National Quality Board (NQB) has published a report setting out how the new health system will work together to maintain and improve quality and safety, ensuring patients receive the best care possible. The report ‘Quality in the new health system – maintaining and improving quality from April 2013’, describes how improving quality is the responsibility of everyone working in the health service, both individually and collectively.
- Who is your Healthcare IT Champion of the year?: Voting for eHealth Insider’s Healthcare IT Champion of the Year is now open. EHI readers can now vote for their favourite nominee in round one by Friday 24th August 2012 and then in the second round shortly after. This category of the EHI Healthcare IT Champion is an opportunity to recognise those who have worked tirelessly to promote healthcare IT in the UK; through individual practice, the education system, professional organisations or the healthcare system itself. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony in London on Thursday 4 October 2012. Cast your vote here.
Opinion
The new NHS IT arrangement
In this week’s opinion piece on eHealth Insider, Joe McDonald, former national clinical lead for IT at NHS Connecting for Health writes about the new direction of NHS IT.
Joe previously wrote about the ‘Gadafi style’ experience he had while at Connecting for Health but he now gives his take on the new arrangements and says NHS IT is effectively being left like his kitchen bin “many people are responsible for it and therefore none are responsible.”
Joe observes that there is a definite need for a process to be put in place around lessons learned.
“CfH failed because it was dominated by technical rather than clinical people. The new arrangements don’t do anything to address this fundamental issue. It is therefore likely that we will make nothing of all our painful experience, and hand over this market place to the United States of America.”
Our very own Olympian challenge
Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust chief executive, Kathryn Thomson, continues her quest to keep the public well informed and morale high during the NHS reforms. In her blog ‘Our very own Olympian challenge,’ Kathryn writes:
“Like everyone in the NHS and public services, our challenge is to deliver quality and cost improvements and protect jobs wherever possible. Both quality of clinical services and financial stability are equally important. One without the other is not an option.
“Efficiency without quality is unthinkable, but quality without efficiency is unsustainable.”
She goes onto reassure the public that while these are tough times the trust has the responsibility to ensure that it continues to provide efficient and effective services to protect patients. She concludes:
“I can assure you that every cost improvement scheme proposed will be assessed before implementation in terms of its impact on patients and the quality and safety of the services they are receiving.”
What Guardian Healthcare is writing about this week
There were a number of interesting articles that featured in this week’s Guardian Healthcare Network. Firstly a ‘A day in the life of Samer Nashef’, an inspirational consultant cardiac surgeon at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge who’s day starts at 5:30am when he has two black coffees while listening to the radio.
“Recently, I’ve been using the morning to work on a book I’m currently writing, a sort of guide to help the non-medical person understand what makes good surgery. I think it’s crucial that patients are able to interpret surgical outcome data so they can make informed decisions about their course of treatment, and the book aims to explain just that.”
Then there was the piece from Dr Jagen John, a Barking GP and NHS north-east London and the City integrated care lead, about a project in north London which has seen GPs running integrated care teams made up of district nurses, social workers and care co-ordinators which has reduced hospital admissions to an all time low. A great example of how integrated care can work and one which will hopefully provide a lead for others to follow.
“Patients are assigned to an integrated care team comprising of a GP, community matron, district nurse, social worker and care co-ordinator. The team goes out to each of the practices in their “cluster” for a two-weekly multidisciplinary team meeting to discuss and agree holistic care plans for patients.”
Finally Professor Mike Morgan, chair of the British Thoracic Society looks at the health service reforms and how they are creating a dilemma for the government over the management of the increasing numbers of people with long-term health conditions. He says that we need to work together to ensure quality standards for individual conditions but expresses concerns around the marketisation of the NHS in that it may result in a breakdown of co-ordination.
“On one hand, the marketisation of the NHS may produce economies of provision but on the other will result in a breakdown of co-ordination among providers. A multiplicity of providers involved in the care pathway for even one chronic disease will make co-ordinated or integrated care difficult to achieve.”
Highland Marketing blog
After the success of the London 2012 Olympic games and as we revel in the great achievements of the Team GB athletes, Myriam McLoughlin reflects on the healthcare legacy and asks if it will create a “healthier, happier, more active nation” as promised.
Highland Marketing news
This week Highland Marketing has announced that Sarah Bruce has been promoted to the role of account director. In her new position Sarah will be responsible for managing existing portfolios as well as new accounts, plus she will continue to lead on social and digital media campaigns. Mark Venables our CEO said: “Since joining Highland Marketing Sarah has really impressed me with her extremely wide range of skills and whatever Sarah produces it is always to an extremely high standard. I am sure you will join me in congratulating Sarah and wishing her well in this new role.”
