Politics puts climate back on the agenda  The week opened with London mayor Sadiq Khan warning that London faces the “incredibly worrying prospect” of 45C (113F) days “in the foreseeable future.” (The Guardian). This would make the Underground, some homes, schools and healthcare facilities “not fit for purpose” and Khan argued there is an urgent need for climate adaptations. Hospitals had to postpone operations in last summer’s 40C heat as datacentres collapsed. More than 2,500 people died in 2020’s heatwaves. Towards the end of the week, prime minister Rishi Sunak undermined the thrust of the government’s drive for net-zero by 2050 by postponing or junking some specific pledges around vehicles, boilers, and diet (iNews).

NHS strikes latest  Junior doctors and consultants took joint strike action for the first time in the history of the NHS on Wednesday. This overlapped with a two-day strike by consultants and a three-day strike by junior doctors. Staff provided a “Christmas Day Service.” However, NHS England medical director Professor Sir Stephen Powis said it posed “an enormous challenge” as the service tries to recover waiting lists and prepare for winter (BBC News). The government responded by floating the idea of introducing minimum staffing levels to NHS services that would require some doctors and nurses to work during strikes, and effectively end their right to take action (DHSC press release).

Oracle Health promises ‘next gen’ EPR features  Oracle Health has promised to deliver ‘next generation’ electronic patient record features, building on its purchase of Cerner and its Millennium product. Digitalhealth.net reported that the company is working on tooling Millennium for its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and making use of cloud-capabilities, such as generative AI, in a new Oracle Clinical Digital Assistant. This could respond to voice commands, automate note taking, and propose context-aware next actions. Oracle Health is also working on new application programming interfaces and integration with its own HR, finance and supply chain software. Oracle paid $28 billion for Cerner Millennium in June last year.

Cheshire and Merseyside works with C2-Ai  The Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care System has signed an agreement with C2-Ai to extend the use of a high-impact waiting list initiative. Health Tech World reported that the ICS will scale up the success achieved by a number of trusts in its region in using the tool to find, prioritise and support high-risk patients on waiting lists, using a pre-habilitation programme called ‘waiting well’. An NHS England assessment of the first 125,000 patients to be managed by the system found a significant drop in the need for ICU and emergency admissions, with 125 bed-days saved for every 1,000 patients on the waiting list.

Maternity developments: Harrogate and District adopts BadgerNet and North East London tackles health inequalities CardMedic   Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust has digitised its maternity services. Health Tech World reported that it has deployed the BadgerNet maternity system from Clevermed (a System C company). As part of the deployment, women will have access to their pregnancy record on an app or web portal that covers the Yorkshire and Humber and York and Scarborough areas. Meanwhile, the North East London Integrated Care System has introduced the CardMedic app to its maternity services. The app translates common clinical conversations into different languages and formats. North East London hopes it will reduce health inequalities in its diverse population.

Health IT news: ICS priorities, FDP concerns, no AfC fixes, and digi doc guidance for nurses  A snapshot survey of integrated care system digital leaders has identified shared care records as their highest priority, followed by health provider digitisation. However, the survey conducted by Digital Health for the ICS Digital Council, found 94% of respondents thought budget cuts will have a ‘big’ or ‘significant’ impact on their plans. A webinar debate hosted by Digital Health has come down against the Federated Data Platform that is being pushed by NHS England. However, long-standing columnist Joe McDonald has argued the project may be too high-profile and costly to cancel (even if it proves to be a mistake that erodes trust among patients).      Ministers have rejected a call from the Commons’ health and social care committee to allow NHS organisations to pay higher salaries to boost the digital workforce. They have refused to shift on the NHS Agenda for Change pay structure, which can make it hard to grade IT roles at a high-enough level to pay competitive salaries. The government has adopted other recommendations made by the committee, including a nationwide standards framework to improve interoperability and data sharing. NHS England has published guidance on clear and accurate record keeping for nurses, with a focus on digitising documentation. The guidance was developed with the Professional Records Standards Body (digitalhealth.net).