News in brief
Greater Manchester to control £6bn NHS budget: Greater Manchester is to become the first English region to get full control of its health spending, as part of an extension of devolved powers, reported the BBC. Chancellor George Osborne said the £6bn health and social care budget would be taken over by the region’s councils and health groups. Osborne said it was a “really exciting development”. A Labour spokesman said NHS workers would “want to be persuaded of the case for a new layer of management”. The plan will come into force from April 2016. Mr Osborne added: “This is what the NHS wants to see as part of its own future. And it’s also about giving people in Manchester greater control over their own affairs in that city, which is central to our vision of the ‘northern powerhouse’- so it’s a very exciting development.” The plan would see local leaders, and ultimately Greater Manchester’s new directly elected mayor, control how budgets are allocated. The government hopes integrating health and social care services will ease pressure on hospitals and help to improve home care services for patients who need it.
Trusts told of cut to tech fund 2 awards: NHS England’s second technology fund has been cut by nearly £200m, with only one-fifth of bidders to receive any money reported, eHealth Insider (EHI). Beverley Bryant, NHS England’s director of strategic systems and technology, has confirmed that the final size of the ‘Integrated Digital Care: Technology Fund’ signed off by the Treasury is only £43m. The fund was £240m when it was launched in May 2014, and in August NHS England announced that 226 bids worth £360m had been made to it. Bryant said this morning that just 48 successful applications from both trusts and local authorities will be funded from the money that remains, £20m of which must be spent in the 2014-15 financial year, with £23m to be spent in 2015-16. Bryant told EHI: “We remain committed to helping digitise and integrate patient information across health and care. The latest round of funding will support doctors, nurses and care staff to move from paper-based clinical records to integrated digital care records, making information sharing easier and ensuring patients only tell their story once. More funding will follow next year and subsequently.”
Digital pioneer bids to integrate NHS patient records for free: One of the NHS technology community’s leading experts is building a new system to integrate the health service’s myriad patient record systems, and he plans to give it to the NHS for free, reported Health Service Journal (subscription required, HSJ). The highly ambitious project is in its early stages but NHS IT experts believe it has the potential to be one of the single biggest developments in the field this decade. It is being led by David Stables, a founder of the GP records system giant EMIS. The highly regarded industry figure is funding the Endeavour Health Charitable Trust with an endowment worth several million pounds. The appeal of Dr Stables’ project to senior figures in the sector, contacted for comment by HSJ, is that it would allow the NHS, rather than a private sector company, to control the means by which records are shared, reducing the risk of commercial disagreements between private sector vendors becoming a barrier to record sharing. Shane Tickell, chief executive of IMS Maxims, a company that has produced an open source version of its electronic patient records system, said: “This is probably the single biggest development [in NHS IT] in the last five, six, perhaps 10 years, and could really get things moving.”
Nurse-led app for teen health among winners of innovation funding: A text messaging service for teenagers run by school nurses at Leicestershire Partnership Trust is one of 13 projects to receive money from a £650,000 NHS innovation prize fund, reported Nursing Times (subscription required). The project, called ChatHealth, uses a confidential SMS helpline to provide help and advice to 100,000 11-to-19-year-olds in the local area. It has won £100,000 – the largest amount on offer to applicants – from the NHS Innovation Challenge Prizes fund to investigate rolling out the system nationally, developing an instant messaging app and using secure video-chat to create self-help discussion forums. The team behind the project has estimated that just 30 nurses could handle all messages from UK teenagers if every NHS trust adopted a similar model, which would help free up many hours of school nurse time.
61% think “perverse financial incentives are a major barrier to integration”, says study: Hospitals and A&E wards are being financially incentivised to keep people in hospital beds, according to a new report. The report, ‘Unblocking: Securing a health and social care system that protects older people’, from Localis, explores the failures of the lack of joined-up care within the health and social care system, resulting too often in sub-standard care for the older population, according to Integrated Care Today. The study, involving more than 100 senior figures from Health and Wellbeing Boards, revealed 61% felt perverse financial incentives are a major barrier to integration of health and social care. Looking specifically at ‘bed blocking’, 46% stated the lack of incentives, especially financial, were one of the main underlying causes. Localis’ chief executive, Alex Thomson, who directed the research, said: “Our research highlights how entrenched the problems caused by lack of integration in our health and social care system are, and the knock-on effects on older people especially.”
First wave of CP-IS gathers strength: Three NHS organisations and three local authorities have now gone live in the first wave of a nationwide Child Protection Information Sharing project, the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) has confirmed. The CP-IS system will flag children identified as vulnerable by social services to NHS staff if they attend A&E or other unscheduled care settings. The project, which will cost £8.6m over the next five years, has been developed by the HSCIC, reported eHealth Insider. It will hold information centrally in a secure database, from where it can be accessed via the NHS data Spine. Another 15 local authority sites are currently preparing to transmit information using the system, while there are a further 18 NHS sites ready to receive the alerts. An HSCIC spokesperson said that they expect to meet its goal of having 80% of England’s local authorities capable of transmitting data by the end of 2015.
Nerve-connected bionic hand and smart trousers development funded: Research into innovative health care technologies including a Star Wars-like bionic hand, smart trousers for disabled people and biosensors that can be tattooed on skin have received £5.3m from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s (EPSRC), reported Engineering and Technology Magazine. Part of EPSRC initiative to harness high-tech developments for the benefit of people in need of assistive and rehabilitative care, the projects will bring together some of the leading British research institutions. Kianoush Nazarpour, of Newcastle University and leader of the study, said: “If we can design a system that allows this two-way communication it would help people to naturally reach out and pick up a glass, for example, whilst maintaining eye contact in a conversation, or pick up an apple without bruising it.” The bionic hand, to be equipped with novel fingertip temperature and pressure sensors, would allow the amputees to control their prosthetic limbs more naturally and therefore get the grasp of the technology more quickly. By communicating directly with the brain, the bionic hand could also offer a solution to those patients, who can’t benefit from existing technologies.
ICT service launches whistleblowing tool: Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Luton ICT Services has launched a feedback tool that it says provides a simple, anonymous solution for NHS staff and patients to report concerns about the way services are run. iNotify was developed by DCSL Software and is already being used in East and North Hertfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), where GPs can submit concerns via an application installed on their PCs. The idea for the tool came from Mark Peedle, head of operational IT at the ICT service, which is hosted by the CCG. He told eHealth Insider that iNotify was a “complementary” system to similar services, such as the popular website Patient Opinion, which allows both the public and NHS staff to feedback on poor service, and NHS Choices, which has similar functionality.
Dr Julia Fishman joins TeleTracking Technologies: TeleTracking Technologies has appointed paediatric specialist surgeon and former McKinsey consultant, Dr Julia Fishman, as UK vice president of clinical operations, reported eHealth News.eu. Dr Fishman, a consultant and clinician with 10 years’ experience of hospitals and transformation, joined TeleTracking after seeing how revolutionary real-time locating system technology could support hospitals wanting and needing to embrace change in managing patient care. “Moving people around a hospital is an essential part of the care delivery system,” she said. “If you can get people in the right place at the right time, clinicians can deliver the right care, and clinical processes can become better orchestrated. This helps hospitals manage patient flow, reduce waiting times and provide better, more efficient care. TeleTracking’s technology assists hospitals in delivering improvements, alongside changes in processes.”
Tech firm Orion Health opens Glasgow office: New Zealand based software firm Orion Health has opened an office in Glasgow as it seeks to build on its existing workload with health boards, reported The Scotsman. The company has developed an “electronic patient record” for NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, which aims to reduce the need for duplicate tests and repeat appointments, and is now looking to expand its use across Scotland. Colin Henderson, UK and Ireland managing director at Orion Health, said: “A Scottish base will help us deliver solutions that closely meet the needs of its pioneering health boards, as well as recruit from the country’s considerable body of expertise.” The office was opened by health secretary Shona Robison, who said: “Technology has the potential to transform the way we deliver services.” Orion Health has received support from Scottish Development International to set up the base, while Scottish Enterprise is to provide assistance with its recruitment process and establishing links with academia.
Opinion
The NHS must embrace new technologies
Will Mosseri-Marlio, researcher at Reform argues that smarter use of new technologies such as apps and social networking can really help the NHS to boost its productivity profile.
“Innovation has been emerging outside the NHS”. He adds: “Apps such as Babylon and DrThom are giving patients access to ‘virtual’ primary care and online diagnostic advice simply using smartphones. A study of 13 developed and developing countries recently found that nearly nine out of ten people have used the internet as a source of health information and advice. Social networking sites such as IWantGreatCare and PatientsLikeMe give patients a forum in which to feedback on services, learn from other patients and track their own conditions.
“Widespread adoption of these types of technologies could yield considerable productivity gains for the NHS. Expediting the ‘kitemarking’ of health apps could harness existing efficiencies, assure professionals and patients of the clinical merit of these products, and give entrepreneurs the confidence to pursue new ideas. But with patients increasingly seeking to take control of their own health, this would also be an important step towards creating a more patient-centred health service.
“Of course, creating a more patient-centred health service will be more than the sum of any one initiative. Important lessons, for example, could be learned from industries which have already undergone the journey towards consumer-centric services. But the adoption of a more open approach to disruptive technologies would significantly contribute to this process and help the NHS address the productivity challenge.”
The conversation about patient experience must go global
As the Beryl Institute embarks on its 2015 survey of patient experience, president Jason Wolf explains how its findings will engage and inform service design.
“In 2011 the Beryl Institute first launched its exploration into the state of patient experience to better understand a topic that was taking hold in the language of healthcare. As an emerging healthcare term with roots grounded in patient advocacy and patient and family centredness, we just a few months earlier that year introduced a community developed definition of the concept: “The sum of all interactions, shaped by an organisation’s culture, that influences patient perceptions across the continuum of care.”
“If we view the healthcare experience from the eyes of those we care for and engage with – patients, residents, families and support networks – we have a tremendous opportunity to reset the lenses through which we consider, explore and address this issue.
“These ideas are all part of one experience in healthcare. People want safe, quality encounters where they are treated with dignity and respect. They want to be aware of and even worry about costs, and are impacted by broader population outcomes that drive the choices of their own care experience.
“In contributing to this global investigation we together will begin to identify trends and paint a more complete picture of how we are addressing the healthcare experience around the world.
This is truly healthcare’s global conversation – one that touches the lives of countless individuals and not only has the potential, but already is changing the nature of healthcare for all engaged.”
Adapting to an unhealthier Europe
James Norman of EMC argues how integrating patient data across different systems is integral to future healthcare.
“The rise of lifestyle illnesses is changing the structure of the European healthcare system by creating an imbalance between supply and demand. We are fast running out of the hospital resources required to adequately care for the increasing numbers of patients in need of long-term care, and we simply do not have the money required to keep scaling up our healthcare networks.
“The World Bank has estimated that public expenditure on healthcare in the EU could increase to a whopping 14% of GDP by 2014. It is a message of austerity that is now familiar to European ears: we must do more with less. In achieving this goal, we believe that healthcare organisations, at a national and regional level, must co-operate to deliver fully-integrated care to the patient.
“Integrated healthcare is a structural shift that expands the centre of gravity of the healthcare system beyond the hospital borders. Care will become more distributed, with the burden shared by a wider variety of health providers – GPs, physiotherapists, pharmacists, home carers, family members, private health clinics, gyms, food nutritionists – the list goes on. The patient is at the centre of this web and it is the patient’s information that binds it together.
“Such a system does, however, require a level of technological innovation. Lifestyle illnesses are not going to go away anytime soon, but we at least have a way of adapting to the stresses they place on the health service. For us, the free and secure flow of patient data will prove critical – not just in reducing cost and easing the strain on hospitals, but also in improving patient outcomes.”
Highland Marketing blog
In this week’s blog, Chris Marsom takes a closer look at the buzz created around the Greater Manchester devolution plans.
