News in brief
Jeremy Hunt softens pledge to recruit 5,000 new GPs: Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has said his promise of 5,000 new GPs was in truth ‘the maximum’ achievable by 2020, reported GP Online. His comments appeared to signal a softening of the government’s pledge which was criticised as unrealistic by GPs during the election campaign. GP leaders have said the government has failed to demonstrate how it will attract so many new GPs. Responding to Hunt’s comments GPC chairman Dr Chaand Nagpaul said he was glad the health secretary was beginning to accept the need to be more realistic about GP recruitment and called on him to rethink plans for seven-day GP services. However the Department of Health has said it remained committed to the 5,000 GPs target. Speaking at the Commissioning 2015 conference in London this week, Hunt said: “I talked about recruiting 5,000 more GPs on Friday. In truth we think that that is the maximum that we would be able to increase the GP workforce by over the next five years given the time it takes to train new GPs, given the potential number we could persuade to come back into the profession.” The secretary of state’s latest comments will be seen as a recognition of the difficulty of recruiting and training 5,000 GPs in five years.
Robison launches ‘national conversation’ on future of health and social care: Cabinet secretary for health, wellbeing and sport, Shona Robison MSP used her address to the NHS Scotland Conference in Glasgow to launch a national conversation on the future of health and social care in Scotland. The launch of the national conversation follows the Scottish government’s announcement in January of its intention to develop a longer term 10 to 15 year strategy that builds on, but goes beyond, the 2020 Vision for Health and Social Care, reported Care Appointments. In her keynote speech, the cabinet secretary outlined that the conversation would look to consider and seek consensus on a broad range of issues, including how to increase the pace of change in shifting the balance of care, and developing more coherent working on population health, with firmer links to housing, welfare and employability to support economic growth. The event also saw the announcement of ‘Our Voice’, a new initiative aiming to support people who use support and services to engage purposefully in service improvement by sharing their experiences.
Wearables info to feed records – Kelsey: Members of the public will be able to add data from wearable devices to their electronic patient record (EPR) by 2018, according to Tim Kelsey, national director for patients and information at NHS England. Kelsey made the commitment at the Health+Care event in London, suggesting that health tracking devices such as Fitbit could be used to help create personalised care plans for patients, reported DigitalHealth.net. “We think a really important moment is for people to be able to take their wearable device and plug it into their clinical record so that, when they want to, not only can clinicians see that data, they themselves can enrich with personal insights.” Some large EPR companies are already working in this area, including Cerner and Epic in the US. In the UK, EMIS is working with Apple to use its HealthKit tool to create a personal health record that doctors can access from EMIS Web. The greater use of personal data is part of wider plans from NHS England and the Department of Health to give patients more control of their own clinical records with Kelsey saying that supporting GPs and practice managers to switch on this service was just the first phase of the plan, and now NHS England needed to do more to make sure the functionality has a purpose.”
Pharmacists given access to SCR: Community pharmacists are to be given access to the NHS Summary Care Record (SCR), the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) has announced. The move, which follows a long campaign for access by pharmacists, and a pilot at 140 sites, will be backed by £7.5m of investment in training, and will start this autumn. In a statement, the new minister of state for community and social care, Alistair Burt, said: “Pharmacists are an untapped resource in our health service – as experts in medicines, they can help people to manage their conditions and take some of the pressure off our GPs. That is why it makes complete sense to give them the ability to access a patient’s summary care record, where appropriate. I encourage all community pharmacists to get involved and further improve the care we give people in their communities.” The NHS SCR was one of the key projects of the National Programme for IT in the NHS. It was intended to create the ‘national’ element of the integrated care records service that it set out to deliver, reported DigitalHealth.net. The HSCIC said that a report on the latest pilot programme had shown that access to the SCR helped pharmacist to avoid sending patients to other NHS care settings.
Scheme to improve patient safety is on track to save 6,000 lives: A year after the launch of Sign up to Safety, 260 NHS organisations have set out ambitious plans to save lives by reducing avoidable harm, reported Gov.uk. This figure far exceeds the campaign’s target to get 180 organisations to sign up in its first year. It means that Sign up to Safety is in a strong position to reach its aim of saving up to 6,000 lives over 3 years through the reduction of preventable harm such as medication errors, blood clots and bed sores. Successful organisations have already been engaging staff and patients in the scheme. Health secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “I’m delighted that so many NHS organisations have committed to our ambition of making the NHS the safest healthcare system in the world. Promoting safer care in innovative ways that involve patients and staff on the front line is vital to achieving this. I urge all NHS organisations to become part of this ground-breaking shift in the way we think about care. By listening to staff and patients and supporting them when things go wrong, we can learn from mistakes, prevent harm and ultimately save lives.”
NHS digital future at risk from lack of IT knowledge, skills and resources: A lack of skills and knowledge coupled with work pressure on clinicians is preventing widespread and cost-effective IT modernisation across NHS hospitals, according to experts at Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) NHS Foundation Trust. Fran Cousins, chief operating officer at CUH, and Dr Afzal Chaudhry, chief medical information officer at CUH, both have instrumental roles in the trust’s 10-year IT overhaul plan being carried out in partnership with HP. Now two-and-a-half years into the programme, both have an insight into what’s needed to remove the legacy systems and networks found in many NHS hospitals, and replace them with modern cloud-based infrastructure and technology. During an event discussing the project held at the Academy of Medical Sciences in London, V3 asked Cousins what barriers exist to prevent more hospitals from following the example set by CUH, given the cost-benefits and improved care delivery such an undertaking can yield. “I would say the first barrier is a lack of knowledge and understanding, particularly at board level,” she said. “You find in most NHS organisations they don’t have a director of operations. Everything is transferred and communicated through someone with a bigger portfolio,” she added, noting this approach often means there is no single individual who can focus on a complex IT transformation project. Cousins said there is a serious lack of IT infrastructure knowledge within the NHS.
Tech Mahindra and Circle Health target NHS with ten-year £50m deal: Circle Health and Tech Mahindra have unveiled a deal worth £50m over 10 years to profit from huge “tech-led disruption” they believe is about to occur within the NHS. UK-based healthcare firm Circle will give 103,000-strong Indian IT giant Tech Mahindra access to its three NHS hospitals and management contracts while Tech Mahindra will develop new IT solutions for Circle in return. The partnership, which they claim is the largest in the European healthcare sector, will offer what they call “cutting edge technologies” to the NHS like remote diagnosis, wearables, telemedicine and data analysis. “People are being forced to do things differently. There is a £30bn NHS funding gap in the next five years and £22bn of that can be addressed by efficiencies. We believe the model has to change,” Circle’s CEO Steve Melton told ComputerWorld. The parties promised to open up their APIs, allow their systems to share data with others and use open source software where possible.
Open source “super CIC” created: NHS England has set up a “super CIC” to act as a centre of excellence and attract funding for open source projects within health and social care. Peter Coates, NHS England’s open source programme manager, told DigitalHealth.net the new community interest company has already received a number of grants, including money from NHS England, to progress outcomes around urgent care and the Code4Health programme. The Open Source Software Foundation for Health and Social Care, or super CIC, has three founding members; Bill Aylward, director of the OpenEyes electronic patient record programme at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Phil Kozcan, chief clinical information officer at UCL Partners; and Joe McDonald, chair of the Digital Health CCIO Network. Coates said the three clinicians work in a variety of settings and understand the barriers faced by the NHS in adopting open source technology. The benefit of creating a CIC is that it will be a “highly flexible and agile organisation”, able to react and respond quickly to a changing environment.
£5.2bn needed to overhaul health and social care system: The government has been urged to divert £1.3bn a year into a transformation fund to help the shift towards a new prevention-focused health and social care system, reported LocalGov. A report by Ernst & Young, commissioned by the Local Government Association (LGA), said this would allow £5.2bn to be invested in preventative measures over the next five years. The transformation fund “should focus on preventative measures and aim to prevent complex and long-term conditions, which can cost the system almost £88bn each year – a cost that is growing with the ageing population”, it said. The longer term aim would be to pool all health and social care funding, said the report, and create a system “which focuses on keeping people healthy and out of hospital, rather than putting the majority of money into providing care for serious conditions”. It added: “Local authorities and health partners recognise that social care must be properly funded to enable councils to alleviate pressure on health services.” The report highlighted how simple preventative measures can make a significant difference. Spending £1 on local friendship networks can save almost four times that amount on mental health services, it said.
Analytics platform aids Scottish hospital: NHS Scotland’s Golden Jubilee National Hospital has deployed the MicroStrategy Analytics Platform and MicroStrategy Mobile to monitor, report, and analyse over 200 quality indicators consisting of patient care, staffing, and performance metrics, reported Building Better Healthcare. “We have realised numerous benefits from using MicroStrategy in a short order of time. The platform’s comprehensive capabilities allow us to measure, in detail, the success of our Quality Framework and inform members of our staff via mobile apps on how they can be more responsive to our patients. Furthermore, we believe our Quality Framework, with MicroStrategy as its enterprise analytics standard, can be a model for adoption at other healthcare facilities around the world,” said Jill Young, chief executive of the hospital. MicroStrategy Mobile empowers staff members to quickly view, collect, and update information anywhere, from the boardroom to the ward. NHS Scotland’s Golden Jubilee National Hospital considers MicroStrategy a key component of its overall vision to lead quality, research and innovation for NHS Scotland through a new Quality Framework. Scotland has set the benchmark for adopting innovative approaches to improving health care at a large scale through its Scottish Patient Safety Programme.
Capita wins NHS England primary care support contract: NHS England has picked Capita as its preferred bidder to establish a single provider framework for administrative support functions for primary care across the UK, reported Government Computing. The relationship, which includes an initial contract to manage and deliver services in England, consists of a four-year sole provider framework with a maximum value of £1bn. Under the framework, the initial seven to 10 year contract for Capita to deliver administrative support services for primary care is anticipated to be valued at up to £400m, whilst achieving “significant savings” for NHS England. The contract calls for Capita to introduce a common set of services, processes and standards to improve the quality, reliability and sustainability of administration support services. Accessible services and better ways of working are expected to contribute savings that match NHS England’s commitment to reduce administration costs and protect investment in frontline care.
Cambridge trust moves beyond initial ‘eHospital’ challenges: Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has claimed it has come through a difficult implementation period – known internally as the “the valley of despair” for its £200m “eHospital” programme and is beginning to realise notable operational benefits from its work, reported Government Computing. Dr Afzal Chaudhry, chief medical information officer with the trust, said that despite facing anticipated initial challenges from the project, it was now curbing staff reliance on paper notes as part of a wider shift towards introducing more innovative, automated solutions for care. These solutions include a soon-to-launch patient portal known as “MyChart”, along with ongoing work to better integrate technology and data into the trust’s pharmaceutical and blood transfusion operations. Launched by the trust last October, the eHospital programme has seen both Addenbrooke’s Hospital and the Rosie Hospital undergoing a long-term transformation of how patient data is accessed and used to enhance the quality of patient care under a 10 year-agreement with Epic and HP. Chaudhry said that while different clinical departments were adapting to the eHospital plan at different rates, notable changes were being seen across the trust’s operations. “Every day, every week, 1,700 patients are admitted to our hospital and discharged. Every month, 40,000 patients come through our outpatients clinic and it’s all done in the electronic system and the vast majority of people in some respects don’t notice it’s happened,” he said.
Pioneering health app launches tool to help achieve digital healthcare vision for self-care: mHealth pioneer Health Fabric is helping deliver the vision of patient-centred digital health by launching the Health Fabric Store where clinicians and commissioners can create, share and recommend care plans with their patients and reap the potential benefits of digitally-driven self-care, reported Health+Plus Care. Launched at this year’s Commissioning event, the store will help patients, carers and healthcare providers to improve care and reduce the need to use health and care services – part of the NHS’ vision for personalised health and care, and which could go some way towards achieving Tim Kelsey’s ambitious vision of using IT to help save the NHS £13.7bn per year. “Long term health conditions now eat up almost three quarters of the health service budget,” said Satnam Bains, chief executive officer of Health Fabric. “At the same time, many people want to be more involved with their own care. This technology bridges the gap between patient and provider by using clinically relevant care plans and translating them into patient-centric healthcare information and activities.”
Nurse cuts ‘put 7-day plan at risk’: Official data shows the number of nurses employed in the two most senior grades have fallen by 3% since 2010 reported the BBC. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said senior nursing roles would be vital in the proposed seven-day drive. The senior posts cover roles such as ward sisters and senior positions such as nurse consultants that lead teams. Speaking ahead of the start of the RCN annual conference, the union’s general secretary Peter Carter said: “Nursing staff, and above all, senior expert nurses, are a huge part of the solution to delivering seven-day care.” A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “Ensuring we have the right number of nurses is vital. That’s why we’re taking the issue of nursing recruitment seriously and have prioritised and invested in frontline staff, so there are over 8,000 more nurses on our wards.” She added there were now attempts to train up a new generation of nursing leaders with extra money being provided.
EMIS included in GPSoC Lot 3 framework: EMIS has been included as an approved supplier to deliver cross-care setting interoperable services under Lot 3 of the GP Systems of Choice (GPSoC) framework, reported Integrated Care Today. Under the new agreement, EMIS will deliver services to local organisations – including general practices and clinical commissioning groups that allow GP clinical IT systems to interoperate with those used in other care settings. EMIS is among 17 suppliers who have signed contracts with the Health and Social Care Information Centre for Lot 3. It is also included in Lots 1 and 2. Under Lot 3, EMIS will offer customers a wide range of services that can be locally procured, from portals and electronic patient record viewer to consultancy and business transformation, enabling wider information sharing and best use of technology. Chris Spencer, CEO of EMIS Group said: “We are delighted to be included in this new framework, which will make it easier for GPs and CCGs to access the wide range of services available across the Group to join up healthcare in every setting.”
Orion Health wins Technology Provider of the Year at 2015 HealthInvestor Awards: Orion Health, a population health management company and provider of electronic health records (EHRs), has been awarded the 2015 HealthInvestor award for Technology Provider of the year in recognition of its outstanding contribution to healthcare information technology, reported eHealth News EU. Announced at the HealthInvestor award gala, Orion Health stood above other submissions due to its innovation in the UK and deep impact on integrated health. HealthInvestor judges praised the way in which Orion Health has been able to utilise and develop integration technology to meet the differing and changing needs of populations and healthcare providers. “Being acknowledged by HealthInvestor demonstrates that our solutions are delivering the value intended and highlights Orion Health as a market leader in healthcare technology in the UK,” commented Colin Henderson, managing director, UK & Ireland at Orion Health. “This win will hopefully help us publicise and showcase the difference that our integrated care solutions are making in UK healthcare, no matter the scale or demand of the project.”
Opinion
Make people the controllers of their data to help the NHS go digital
Changing how we view data and who is in control of it could help us address information governance issues so we make the best use of people’s health records, whoever has created them, says Andrew Chitty on Health Service Journal (subscription required).
“Anyone with a smartphone, tablet or Fitbit knows that, when it comes to our health, all of us now have the power to be “data creators”.
“These devices are creating vast quantities of data that are often stored by individuals on their computers or in the “cloud”. Such stores of personal data are known as personal health records, or PHRs. PHRs are of potentially immense value to health professionals, because they can highlight trends or flag events in data when, before, it might only have been possible to get the occasional snapshot of when someone visited their GP or attended hospital for a check up.
“It’s not happening to a great extent but people’s PHRs could be integrated with their internal electronic health records, which are controlled by the NHS.
“People live more mobile and transient lives and, as a result, expect more flexible, integrated, informed health services. At the same time, there’s an urgent need to move towards the kind of vertical integration, facilitated by technology, that is outlined in the NHS Five Year Forward View.
“This all requires a more patient centred view of data – it requires seeing the individual and their PHR as the central repository of data rather than as data subjects with disparate records spread across multiple institutions.
“The aim of defining these principles is to encourage innovation in service design by providers that will be able to adopt digital solutions, sure in the knowledge that they are safely grounded in an appropriate information governance framework.”
2020 vision: digital efficiency and innovation in the NHS
How are digital products and services changing and improving health system? The King’s Fund’s research assistant for policy, Matthew Honeyman writes about two key announcements from the think tank’s Digital Health and Care Congress this week.
Honeyman reports on the significant progress made by GPs offering patients online appointment booking, before sharing an update on the Leeds Care Record – a single patient record shared by multiple NHS organisations, GPs and the local council in Leeds – made using open technology.
“So what are the benefits of using an open-source model? One benefit is that anyone can use or adapt the code for their particular application without having to buy it and without being locked in to an individual software supplier. Open source is most commonly used to develop software but can apply to the design and production processes for any product or service.
“You are benefiting from this approach right now, as the server sending you this blog runs on open-source software. Open source is a model that has struggled to gain traction in the NHS; its advocates blame ‘vendor lock in’ to proprietary platforms, its critics claim it lacks a viable business model without ownership. But now that could change. The Leeds team’s ambition is that the NHS benefits from an approach that helps new innovators to build on the work of others, instead of starting from scratch or buying into proprietary platforms.
“Though it’s early days, the Leeds Care Record is an example of innovation from within the NHS. And this is the sort of innovation that needs to be spread, sharing the lessons and tools for replicating it; something Leeds hope to achieve with its new community. Along with strategy and standards set from above by the National Information Board, this is the kind of change from within needed to meet the challenges for 2020.”
Blog
Government plans to make integration and the Five Year Forward View real were attacked at Commissioning. But are local pioneers already showing the answers, asks Matthew D’Arcy.
