Inquiry launched following Lucy Letby case  The government has ordered an inquiry into the circumstances behind the murders and attempted murders of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital by nurse Lucy Letby. Letby was found guilty of murdering seven babies and trying to kill six infants between June 2015 and June 2016 and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole (BBC News). The inquiry will look at issues such the role of regulators, trust governance, and how concerns about the high mortality rate were handled. There have already been claims that NHS managers failed to act on clinical concerns, which has led to renewed calls for managers to be regulated.

Consultants strike as the Nuffield Trust examines pay and conditions  NHS consultants have struck again this week, walking out for two days in their dispute with the government over pay and conditions. As context, the Nuffield Trust has published a report on what doctors actually earn, how this has changed over time, and how it compares to other healthcare systems. It concludes that reforms are needed to the current pay process to break the deadlock between the government and the British Medical Association. It also argues that, when staff are feeling exhausted and undervalued by Covid-19 and the pressure to clear the waiting list, creative thinking on non-pay issues, such as professional autonomy and work-life balance, could help.

MEDITECH wins Norfolk and Waveney EPR  The Norfolk and Waveney Acute Hospital Collaborative has announced that it has chosen MEDITECH to deliver an electronic patient record across three acute trusts, the Health Tech Newspaper has reported. The procurement has been keenly watched by EPR vendors because of its scale and what it might say about the direction of travel for the frontline digitisation programme. Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals, James Paget University Hospitals, and The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS foundation trusts are now hoping to go-live in 2025. The collaborative has set up an EPR hub to keep staff and stakeholders up to date on progress.

Health IT news: 1,000 GP practices switch to cloud telephony; wireless trials programme announced; Wales tests electronic prescription service; Morrisons adds QR codes with cancer info to underwear; Frimley Health and Care runs remote monitoring at scale with Graphnet Health and Docobo; Doccla buys OpenTeleHealth  To round off its ‘health week’ last week, the government published a news release about its ambition to roll-out cloud computing across primary care. The release says 1,000 general practices have signed up since the government put the commitment into its primary care access recovery plan, set up a framework contract, and announced funding. Meanwhile, NHS England has launched a new wireless trials programme. Organisations and suppliers will be able to bid for funding to extend and improve wi-fi connectivity and put it to new uses. Previous trials have led to a ‘find and treat’ mobile health unit in London and a 5G connected hospital (Health Tech Newspaper).     Wales is about to start testing a new electronic prescription service, that will see prescriptions sent electronically from a GP practice to a patient’s choice of pharmacy, saving up to 40 million paper forms per year. A medical practice and a community pharmacy in Rhyl will test the system, ahead of a wider roll-out (Health Tech Newspaper). NHS England has announced that it has been working with the supermarket group Morrisons to put cancer awareness messages onto underwear labels. Nutmeg branded underwear will feature the NHS logo and a QR code that buyers can use to get information on breast and testicular cancer from the NHS website.   The Frimley Health and Care Integrated Care System has announced that 4,000 patients with high-risk conditions such as diabetes, heart failure, and chronic obstructive disease are being supported remotely by its Connected Care programme, which has also reached 800 residents in care homes. Suitable patients are identified by Graphnet Health’s population health management solution, CareCentric, and provided with remote monitoring by Docobo (digitalhealth.net). Also in the remote monitoring and virtual ward space, Doccla has acquired a cloud-based company called OpenTeleHealth and its customers Scandinavia and Europe (digitalhealth.net).