News in brief
- NHS trusts form IT procurement groups: The South Acute Programme, a collaboration of 21 acute trusts, have formed six groups to invest in a range of new technology, including e-prescribing, a clinical portal and a patient administration system. The trusts, which were poorly served by the NHS National Programme for IT, have applied for central funding for the new systems, reports the Guardian. They had intended to purchase systems through the NHS’ Additional Supply Capability and Capacity framework, but did not get the systems they needed.
- Barts tenders for performance management system: Barts Health NHS Trust has advertised for a supplier to provide it with ‘clinical benchmarking data and a performance management system that is based on inpatient and outpatient data sets’ reports HSJ (subscription required). The system will provide support to clinicians and managers to aid clinical benchmarking, performance appraisal and analysis of efficiency and productivity. Bidders for the three-year contract must apply by August 20th.
- Inaccurate data stops mental health tariff: Plans to implement a national Payment by Results tariff for adult mental health services have been delayed by the government after concerns about the accuracy of the data being supplied by providers for the Minimum Health Dataset. The tariff which was due to be introduced in 2013-14 by the Department of Health contains patient record level data for adults living with mental health conditions and is managed by the Health and Social Care Information Centre.
- Call for national system for monitoring vital signs: The way vital signs such as blood pressure and temperature are monitored in hospitals needs to be standardised across the NHS, reports the BBC. The scheme – called the National Early Warning Score (NEWS) – has been drawn up by the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Royal College of Nursing after reviewing many of the bedside chart models being used across the NHS. Currently over 100 different models are used, causing confusion and sometimes delays in patients getting help. A joint group of senior doctors and nurses said moving to a national system would save thousands of lives a year and has proposed the system is adopted in the UK within a year.
- Myhealthlondon puts GPs on the map: GP compare site Myhealthlondon has published a map showing which GP practices are offering online services such as patient access to records. The website, launched last December, shows how London practices are performing against national standards such as childhood immunisations and cervical screening, as well as how they compare with other practices in the capital. A new “Google map” function has been added to the site this month; it shows at a glance which practices offer certain online services, such as repeat prescriptions or appointment bookings.
- GPs outnumbered on commissioning group boards, research shows: According to research carried out by Pulse, GPs are outnumbered in nearly half of the new clinical commissioning group boards, with some clinical commissioning groups having just two or three GPs. Despite the Department of Health’s requirement that each board should include a consultant, the research found very few were included. Only 36% of groups had a reserved position for a secondary care doctor – and just seven positions have been filled. In some parts of the country, GPs made up only a fifth of the boards and were in the minority in 44% of them.
- Live-streaming Olympics could slow N3: EHI has reported that NHS staff have been warned against live-streaming their favourite Olympic events because of the pressure it will put on the N3 network. The N3 website says using the “Enhanced Internet Gateway” (EIG) to browse media-rich Olympic’s sites could have a “genuine impact on business and clinical use of the EIG.”
- Europe’s first healthcare “accelerator” fund launches in London: Sandbox Industries, a US business incubator and venture capital firm, has announced that Healthbox, Europe’s first healthcare business “accelerator” programme, is to be based in London. Healthbox will support healthcare entrepreneurs by providing early-stage businesses with seed capital and connections to organisations and individuals from across the healthcare spectrum, including private and public providers, investors, retailers, business experts and national health stakeholders. Commenting on this decision, Healthbox’s founder Nina Nashif said: “The city is the obvious place to come to be part of the UK’s world-renowned academic institutions, science and tech tradition, as well as being a gateway to the rest of Europe. It is the natural seedbed for new, passionate entrepreneurs looking to grow their ideas.”
- Royal Free ‘strongest candidate’ to take over Barnet and Chase Farm: Senior sources have reported to HSJ (subscription required) that The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust is the best candidate to take over Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust. Senior figures from inside and outside the North Central London cluster of primary care trusts believe the Royal Free is the most viable suitor, although no approach has yet been made by either trust. Sources at the Royal Free said the clinical and population health benefit would have to be made clear before the trust pursued any merger.
- NHS considers organ donation shakeup: NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) has published a survey seeking views on options including presumed consent and elective ventilation, reports the Guardian. The NHS is considering its biggest shakeup of the ethical, legal and professional rules governing transplants, floating ideas to prolong the lives of people who have no chance of surviving in order to harvest their organs, and to make people opt out rather than in to the donor register. The survey is on the NHSBT website from Saturday with a deadline of 21 September.
- High Court stops Alder Hey taking action against ‘whistleblower’: A High Court injunction has been issued to prevent Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust from staging a meeting which could have led to the dismissal of paediatric surgeon, Edwin Jesudason who had raised concerns about safety, reports HSJ (subscription required).
- McKesson to pay $151 million to settle drug price case: McKesson Corporation has agreed to pay California and 29 other states a total of $151 million (£96 million) to settle allegations that it inflated prescription drug prices, causing states’ Medicaid programmes to overpay pharmacy reimbursements by millions of dollars, according to the California Department, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Opinion
CIO interview: Mark Large, Great Ormond Street Hospital
When he joined Great Ormond Street Hospital as IT director three-and-a-half years ago, Mark Large was faced with immediate issues as the result of an ageing IT infrastructure.
Computer Weekly provides insight into the IT advancements at one of the world’s leading children’s hospitals in an interview with its CIO.
“Staff were tied to their desks because there was not a viable mobility option, wireless coverage was poor, and there was an inability to locate assets in a timely fashion. This led to a lack of efficiency that had to be resolved.
“The first week I was here, the problems the hospital had became graphically clear to me.”
Large’s first priority was to get the network fixed. He took the opportunity to assess the best strategic direction the hospital’s IT should take. Along with his immediate goals, it was a priority for Large to have no single point of failure in IT.
The doctors’ leader who says it’s time to make tough decisions on the NHS
Last week Professor Terence Stephenson took over as chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. To mark his appointment he gave his trenchant but thoughtful views to The Guardian on the future of the NHS.
“We need long-term thinking and to do the right thing for patients. Given the big increase in funding of the NHS since 2000, it is unacceptable that outcomes for patients in many areas of care still lag behind other big European countries. So if lack of investment isn’t the reason, what is? We do try to deliver care too broadly across too many centres. We’re trying for that aphorism that everybody wants open heart surgery in a cottage hospital. It’s just not deliverable.
“The problem is that we broadly have an NHS structure that’s not much different from 1948. Most of the hospitals that were brought into the NHS in 1948 are still there, and we’ve got to grasp that. I don’t think it’s possible in quite a small country of 60 million people to have 200 to 300 24/7 acute centres offering every single discipline.”
Joe McDonlad’s view: of NHS IT leadership
With another NHS IT CIO on the way out, Joe McDonald, former national clinical lead for IT at NHS Connecting for Health, reflects on previous NHS IT leaders, including Richard Granger, Gordon Hextall and Christine Connolly and the legacy that they have left behind.
In a frank and honest opinion piece in eHealth Insider, MacDonald writes:
“Messengers with bad news were routinely shot pour encourager les autres. We all had to become “good lieutenants” to survive and keep paying the mortgage. Doubly true if you were on a short term contract.”
Highland Marketing blog
Have NHS tenders taken the Information Strategy into consideration? Our industry advisor Jeremy Nettle does not think so, as he writes in our latest blog.
