News in brief
NHS ‘close to breaking point’ warns health boss: The NHS in England is “stretched close to breaking point” and faces the most challenging five years in its history, an open letter to the next health secretary has warned. The editor of the British Medical Journal, Dr Fiona Godlee, and her colleagues have written to whoever takes on the role after the General Election, saying finances are already “cut to the bone”, reported Sky News. The letter insists the health service is “still reeling” from the “costly and distracting” reforms of the coalition Government, while also having to cope with five years of virtual flatline funding in real terms and the growing demands of an ageing population. “Extreme cuts to social care have exacerbated the pressures, causing knock-on effects across the service,” they wrote. “Waiting times for treatment are the longest for many years. Staff morale in many parts of the service is at rock bottom because of real terms pay cuts and the relentless workload, plus patient safety is now at risk, with 13 NHS trusts currently in special measures.” The cumulative deficit of hospital trusts and other NHS providers in England reached a record £1bn last year and is expected to double by the end of 2015/16, with 80% of hospitals now in the red. A list of requests in the letter urges the next government to commit to a guarantee that the NHS remains publicly funded and free at the point of need and for the new health secretary to “focus on collaboration not competition and marketisation”.
NHS England may trial equipping patients with wearable tech: NHS England is looking for up to six population test beds in the country which could be used to trial new technologies, digital services and other innovations, reported GP. Speaking at a Wired Health 2015 event in London, Tony Young, NHS England’s clinical director for innovation, said the work was consistent with NHS England’s Five Year Forward View. He said: “We are looking for test beds, four to six areas in the NHS with populations of around 1million. There will be funding to help make that happen. We are looking for willing clinicians able to test and trial anything.” Young said the original announcement about the test beds had been made before the civil service went into purdah before the election. This says there will be national support for implementing innovations that respond to local clinical needs that may include combinations of GPs, hospitals, community health teams, social care and the voluntary sector. It adds that this could mean equipping patients with wearable tech combined with new patterns of working for clinical and nursing staff. The aim is to help patients manage long-term conditions, addressing any potential problems as early as possible to keep them out of hospital.
Manchester NHS devolution deal will cost £2m to set up: Greater Manchester’s radical health devolution deal will cost £2m to set up over the next year, reported Manchester Evening News. The money will be spent beating out the finer details of how the devolved system will work after the outline plan was revealed in February. Greater Manchester’s health and social care devolution deal was agreed in principle between NHS England, the government, the region’s town hall leaders and senior local clinicians earlier this year. It will see the region’s present health and social care budget of around £6bn entirely devolved to the region from April next year. In the meantime, local politicians, town officials, senior health managers and doctors are working on how exactly the deal will work – as well as starting with some “easy wins.” This includes rolling out seven-day GP access from December. A meeting of around 50 health and council chiefs set up a small committee to oversee the deal, including Manchester council leader Sir Richard Leese and senior clinicians. By the end of the summer, they aim to have drawn up a business plan for ministers ahead of the autumn spending review. That could mean asking for more cash than currently assigned to the region.
Healthcare leaders call for greater mobile adoption: The healthcare industry must make better use of mobile technology to aid quality of care, increased productivity and ensure the welfare of staff, a panel of health and social care professionals has said. The role of mobile technology was discussed at a panel discussion hosted by TotalMobile in London, with pioneers of mobile technology in the health and social care sector calling for better use of the technology, reported ITPro. Julia Clarke, chief executive of community health service provider Bristol Community Heath CIC, said: “Mobile is a revolution I think people have been happy to join in with – and it’s certainly improved the way we work internally. There have been major changes for both the staff but also in the way we can provide care, which we see as delivering quality, productivity, staff welfare and patient well-being benefits. Big change – in a positive way.” Continuing to address the delay in mobile gaining widespread acceptance throughout the NHS, she put forth that systems built years before, and inherited by today’s workforce, were not designed with clinicians in mind. “Instead,” she said, “they were designed for reporting purposes for a wide range of different sorts of organisations, mental health, community and so on – which might be fine for a back office system, but no good for a district nurse out with patients.”
King’s pilots Apple Watch app: King’s College Hospital NHS foundation trust has become one of the first trusts in the UK to use the newly launched Apple Watch as part of patient care. A limited number of cancer patients will have access to the Apple Watch app developed by Medopad to support their chemotherapy. The oncology app, developed with input from doctors at the trust, features several capabilities mainly focused on improving patient adherence to medicines. Patients will receive reminders to take their medication and a tap alert for personalised drug regimens. The aim is to allow doctors to adjust drug regimens when they are required, helping to personalise chemotherapy care and reduce side effects. Siamak Arami, a consultant haematologist at King’s College Hospital, described the app as, “an exciting new development in medical technology”. Medopad co-founder Dan Vahdat told eHealth Insider that a “very limited number of patients” will take part in the chemotherapy app pilot in its initial stages.
Salford urges move to digital pathology: Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust has called for the whole of Manchester to use digital pathology services, following a successful pilot with Sectra, reported eHealth Insider. The trust’s neuropathology services have been a ‘test bed’ for Sectra’s system over the past few months. The system allows pathologists to compare several high-resolution images at once and quickly bring different images into view. This speeds up the process as staff no longer have to move slides on and off a microscope when reviewing multiple images. Anne Yates, cellular pathology services manager at Salford Royal, said: “If we had this system pan-Manchester it would revolutionise pathology.” She believes that a citywide system would benefit patient care as pathology images could be accessed remotely if a patient needs to move to another hospital in the area. This would improve on the current system that involves slides being sent physically. “This can be a slow process and there is a danger of items being lost,” said Yates.
NHS Choices aggregating platform to become integrated part of patient journey: NHS Choices plans to become “more of an integrated path that is part of the NHS journey,” its head of business Owain Davies has said. The site will become less of an encyclopaedic portal, under new plans to extend its remit, reported Integrated Care Today. Clocking up one billion page views since its 2007 launch, NHS Choices is the leading provider of information on health services and conditions in the UK. “The NHS journey can go online or offline as appropriate and we can be an aggregator of those things,” said Davies. “There are already doctor’s surgeries doing video conference appointments and we are adding integration for those areas. We’ve had symptom checkers for 10 years and we have done online prescribing. We are not going into this new.” The Personalised Health and Care Framework 2020 would see the site integrating with NHS 111, the non-emergency care telephone service, to “create a seamless public information service”, and capitalise on the site’s popularity.
Scottish EPMA framework worth up to £20m: A framework worth up to £20 million is being set up for Scottish health boards to buy electronic prescribing and medicine administration (EPMA) systems. NHS National Services Scotland (NHS NSS) has issued a prior information notice for procurement of a national multi-supplier EPMA framework. NHS NSS head of the Business Advisory Group, Mark Salveta expects the contract to be worth between £10 million and £20 million over four years, depending on the number of boards that call-off and what options they might take. “Most boards would like to do it. They certainly don’t want to be rushed into it because it’s a big change in practice, but everybody accepts that having an IT aid when prescribing is a good thing and should be rolled out when appropriate,” he told eHealth Insider. The formal tender will likely be released at the end of May with plans to have the framework established before the end of the year.
CSC to deliver first-of-type Patient Care Co-ordination Centre to NHS in Trafford: CSC has signed a new contract to deliver and co-manage a first-of-type Patient Care Co-ordination Centre (PCCC) in Trafford, reported eHealth News EU. CSC will be delivering the PCCC in partnership with the NHS Trafford Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), providing a complete end-to-end offering. Services will range from initial patient communications (through a unified communications system), through to clinical workflow based on a catalogue of services, to back-end analysis of the effectiveness and efficiency of care delivery. CSC will also be providing innovative business process services and working with partners to deliver clinical services. Dr Nigel Guest, chief clinical officer at Trafford CCG said: “The PCCC is a key element of our strategy for delivering high quality, co-ordinated healthcare to the Trafford population. In CSC we are delighted to have found a partner with a strong track record of delivering innovative solutions in complex and challenging environments including the NHS.”
Welsh Government announces extension of fund to integrate health and social care: A one-off fund for promoting health and social care integration in Wales has been extended to provide ongoing resources to support independence for older people, reported Community Care. The Intermediate Care Fund (ICF) was launched by the Welsh Government as a one-year-only investment of £50m in December 2013, but will now provide an annual budget of £20m. The £20m revenue funding will be used to support older people to live independently in their own homes and local communities, in order to reduce the pressures on hospitals. Mark Drakeford, minister for health and social services, said: “The investments we’ve already made over the last 12 months have enabled health, housing and social services, along with the third and independent sectors, to work together on some very innovative projects. This is helping to make a real difference to the lives of older people across Wales, and I’m pleased we are able to continue investing in these vital projects.”
App dubbed ‘Uber of healthcare’ could revolutionise care for renal patients: Integrated Care Today reports that a new app which is currently under development could offer seriously ill renal patients the chance to book NHS-funded transport to and from hospital through their smartphone. Private consultancy firm 365 Response is developing The HealthCab app following a £500,000 grant from the Department of Health. The new app, being labelled the ‘Uber of healthcare’, will check the credentials of their taxi, ambulance or volunteer driver and track the vehicle’s movements by GPS. “We think this is a very vulnerable group of patients and they should have knowledge and understand who’s picking them up,” said Brendan Fatchett, director of 365 Response. The app could create a new standard for NHS commissioners to regulate patient transport and the suitability of the vehicles and drivers being used.
Camden and Islington NHS to switch electronic patient record: Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust is set to replace its ‘RiO’ electronic patient record (EPR) system with ‘Carenotes’ from Advanced Health & Care in September, reported ComputerWorld UK. The trust provides mental health and substance misuse services to patients in several London boroughs. It has 1,400 staff and serves a population of 420,000. Advanced beat several other approved suppliers for the five-year contract partly thanks to Carenotes’ integrated mobile functionality, a particularly important criterion for the trust as it treats 97% of people in the community. It will mean clinical staff will have access to patients’ records at the point of care rather than needing to return to the office. The trust wants to eventually move to an integrated, interoperable EPR system across all of its units. “With the Carenotes solution we are looking forward to helping our clinicians from all specialties and disciplines share information more effectively,” the trust’s associate ICT director David Jackland said.
Imprivata acquires HT Systems to expand its Authentication and Access Management platform to patients: Imprivata has announced it has acquired HT Systems, the market leading provider of palm-vein based biometric patient identification systems, to enter into the emerging patient identification market, reported Market Watch. The acquisition of HT Systems and its PatientSecure biometric patient identification technology supports Imprivata’s long-term vision to be the leading provider of healthcare IT security solutions that increase provider productivity, enable patient engagement, and improve patient safety. “The acquisition of HT Systems represents our first strategic investment in expanding our market to patients. Patient engagement is going to become a critical part in the providing of care across the healthcare continuum,” said Omar Hussain, president and CEO of Imprivata. “Without systems for secure patient identification and access, meaningful patient engagement across the care continuum will be nearly impossible. We are very excited that with HT Systems, we are acquiring a leading biometric patient identification product that we can leverage through our global distribution channel and partner ecosystem to expand rapidly and meet our customers’ needs.”
Infographic: How healthcare technology is saving lives: We live in an age where the use of technology dominates our lives and these technological developments have had an amazingly positive impact on the healthcare industry. Digital health technology has heavily influenced the improvement in our health and the increased life expectancy we are seeing today. The infographic created by Mission Safety Services outlines the progress we have made, the work that is being done, and possible future developments in healthcare technology that have potential to make real change.
Opinion:
Digital revolution brings data challenges for NHS
Digital health technology could redefine healthcare for the better, but data security remains the greatest challenge, says Matthew Godfrey-Faussett, partner at Pinsent Masons LLP.
“Alongside its industrial cousin, the digital revolution has created fundamental and irreversible changes to our way of life. Those changes are particularly apparent in the healthcare sector and from a UK perspective, digitally enabled services are a vital element in the strategy that the NHS is using to head off the £30bn black hole that will otherwise exist in its budget by 2020.
“While the majority of us expect that goods and services be available within a couple of taps of a smartphone or tablet, in a healthcare context, a sizeable group of the population are either late adopters or remain seriously concerned about data security. Add to that the moral concerns that exist in relation to the commercialisation of patient data and you see the extent of the challenge that the NHS needs to overcome before it is able to realise substantial savings through use of digital health technology.
“The lifeblood of any digital initiative is data. Exponential expansion in the volume of patient data should lead to higher quality analysis and a database that is of ever-increasing value. It is therefore no surprise that the NHS views its data as a three tiered asset, essential to the treatment of patients, vital as a resource for research and increasingly important as a potential source of commercial licensing revenue.
“Whatever the shape of the new data protection regime that the EU is due to implement in the next 12 to 18 months, there are three factors which will be central to the creation of a workable digital health strategy. Firstly, the need to gain the fully informed consent of patients for wider use of their data. Secondly, the need for a global standard governing the anonymisation of that personal data and thirdly, recognition of the fact that healthcare data must ultimately be owned by the patient to whom it relates.”
The opportunities of person-centred care and support
Vanguard sites will not lead to a new era of person-centred care by themselves, Martin Routledge, director of the Coalition for Collaborative Care, says this week.
Writing on the NHS England website, he adds that they do however offer an opportunity to see what is possible, and that this needs to be taken with both hands.
“I have read a number of skeptical but persuasive pieces raising understandable doubts about both the ability of pilots – by whatever name – and top down initiatives to actually drive desired changes to delivery and culture across services and systems,” he writes.
“As someone who has worked for more than 30 years at both local and central levels and as part of efforts to drive user-driven change I generally sympathise with this kind of analysis. The problem is they rarely offer real world solutions – sometimes suggesting over-simple alternative routes to achieving broad based change or ones that will be clearly impossible to bring about.
“For those who are seriously committed to person-centred care, engagement with the (inevitably messy) real world and multi-faceted approaches to making deep change happen will be necessary. We need thoughtful action at the ‘top’, the ‘bottom’ and in the middle.
“Will the Vanguards and Integrated Personal Commissioning transform health and care and initiate the era of person-centred care? No, of course they won’t, on their own. But those of us who want to see this new era should take the opportunity they offer us with both hands. The Vanguards and the IPC programme are an opportunity to show what is possible if we really put people at the heart of public services and work in partnership, together.”
The Ages of Healthcare & Innovation
Richard Corbridge, chief information officer for the Health Service Executive in Ireland blogs on the journey to he calls “Healthcare Information Age” by joining up “pockets of innovation and excellence”.
After outlining eight ages of healthcare information, Corbridge shares his opinion on the current situation of Ireland’s healthcare IT industry: “I shamelessly stole the term ‘post-modern age’ (where it is related to Health IT) from a wonderful clinician here in Ireland who has provided personal drive to ensure technology can bring about an outcome to care provision.
“What does it mean though, in this case, I think is another descriptor for recent time in healthcare technology in Ireland. This is best typified by the concept of looking at the past and using the concepts in healthcare to build a technology supporting infrastructure, a mix of the modern where it can be made to work and the past because of necessity due to funding and resourcing.
“A new realty though is where the concept of traditional technology changes the health outcomes and care dynamic, where access to large complex data sets that relate to the DNA and genomic nature of every human being will become part of healthcare provision. A start up with a 30 year vision called Human Longevity has an ambition to do just that, applying the principles defined by J. Craig Venter in Life at the Speed of Light to the provision of healthcare and indeed even the regular everyday Electronic Health Record (EHR). The sequencing of a whole human genome will move to under a $1,000 cost by the end of 2015, applying Moores law to this process bares no reality. Human Longevity have the first 10,000 sequenced genomes within an EHR in the USA and have plans to get this to 5 million in 5 years! The availability of this information within the EHR simply describes the next age for healthcare for me.
“The next age will evolve from the information age and become something I am not always a fan of using as a descriptor, the technology age of healthcare will be upon us. The ability to step away from pure information and into an ability to really use technology in the disruption of healthcare will define the next change. Technology will be able to be part of the provider capacity. Technology will be the facilitator that moves health provision away from the old limitations brought on by de-innovation based on old structures, old ideas and old systems.”
Blog
Politicians are eager to communicate with you now, especially on the NHS. But will they keep in touch after you visit the polls, asks Matthew D’Arcy?
