News in brief
- New fund will boost digital innovation: The Department of Health is making up to £99,000 available for NHS organisations that come up with new digital services that improve patient care and help share information more easily across the NHS. The Information Sharing Challenge Fund will enable NHS organisations to bid for funding if their ideas demonstrate value for money and can easily be adopted by other NHS organisations as part of the NHS Interoperability Toolkit (ITK). Health Minister Lord Howe said: “We want to support healthcare professionals to be innovative in the NHS. That is why we have created this fund to encourage NHS organisations to come up with new digital ideas that not only improve services for patients but help create an environment where local IT information can be more easily shared across the NHS.”
- Slow take up of EHRs among GP practices: Research carried out by think tank Health 2012 has shown that a minimal number of GP practices provide their patients with access to electronic health records (EHRs). The Department of Health (DH) expects 5% of practices will be offering EHRs by 2015. However, the report suggests “significant work” is needed in terms of infrastructure and cultural changes to reach even this “modest goal”. It was found those patients who have adopted the electronic service have “far fewer” security concerns than those patients who do not use it.
- South West trusts pick Insignia for PACS: Five trusts in the South West of England have awarded a picture archiving and communications system contract to Insignia Medical Systems. Insignia is based in Basingstoke and has three big multi-site contracts with the NHS; with the Mater Hospital in Belfast, Hywel Dda Local Health Board in Wales, and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. Andy Blofield, director of the Plymouth ICT Shared Service and senior responsible officer for the consortium, said the move was “good news” for the trusts involved.
- NHS figures get healthy: Blackpools’ hospitals are ahead of the game when it comes to the problem of patients missing appointments. The Chronos Appointment Confirmation Service is being piloted by Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The service uses a mixture of agent calls and automated calls to remind patients of their appointment a few days before and gives them a chance to re-arrange or cancel. Last year at the Blackpool Trust there were 28,000 wasted appointment slots. Figures suggest that nationally 1 in 10 health appointments – a total of 5.5 million – were missed last year, costing the NHS millions of pounds and delaying treatment for other patients.
- PACS/RIS ‘set for two waves of change’: Trusts in England are set to benefit as the digital imaging market will undergo two changes resulting in keener prices for innovation. A new report from EHI Intelligence on picture archiving and communications systems and radiology information systems noted that while the roll-out of PACS is considered one of NPfIT’s few big successes, it may also have stifled innovation and led trusts to pay higher prices than they may have secured outside the programme. The first wave is already underway and the second wave will follow as trusts that are taking a tactical approach now look to take a more strategic approach in the future.
- NHS told to Skype and text to avoid patients missing appointments: In a drive to reduce missed appointments, hospitals are being told to make greater use of technology by texting patients to remind them of their time slots or using video calling via the web, such as Skype so that people do not need to attend hospital in person. In the last year missed appointments were cut by 250,000, but there were still 5.5m slots unfilled. Health Minister Simon Burns said: “I’m glad to see that the NHS is increasingly using simple ideas such as texting their patients before an appointment or seeing them via Skype. The suggestion that patients who do not show up for appointments should be charged has been dismissed.”
- New health quango struggling to recruit enough expert staff: The NHS Commissioning Board has admitted in its official risk register that the new independent quango at the heart of the coalition’s health reforms is struggling to recruit enough people to make it operationally viable by next year, reported the Guardian. Sources at the board confirmed that the biggest problem was workforce, saying: “Basically the shake-up has meant there’s less of the expert workforce out there than we need.” The coalition health reforms have so far cut 18,000 senior NHS posts, including many of the most experienced in the health service.
- Field and Willett appointed to NHS Commissioning Board: Professor Field, a GP, has been appointed as the deputy national medical director, with responsibility for inequalities, reported HSJ (subscription required). Professor Field has been prominent as chair of the government’s NHS Future Forum review and is a supporter of greater involvement of GPs in commissioning. Meanwhile, Professor Willett – the national clinical director for trauma care, has been appointed as the board’s director responsible for acute and emergency care, covering domain three of the NHS Outcomes Framework.
- ‘Hit squads’ to take over seven NHS trusts: Health Minister Simon Burns has said that he will be sending in “hit squads” to make savings at hospitals where the contracts have gone “horribly wrong”. Senior government lawyers and auditors are to be sent into seven NHS hospital trusts on the brink of bankruptcy, which have been saddled with “absolutely disgraceful” private finance initiative contracts.
- Amor Group buys Maracis EPR system: Maracis Solutions has been purchased by Amor group and will be relaunched as ‘Unity Mental Health’. The system was developed over 15 years by Maracis and is specifically designed for mental health trusts. Speaking to eHealth Insider, Cathy Harris, chief clinical information officer for Amor Group’s health business unit, said: “We procured the system because of its clinical functionality and its presence in the market.”
- NHS Commissioning Board will continue to fund GP software: The GP System of Choice (GPSoC) scheme will continue to be funded by the NHS Commissioning Board. The scheme which funds approved clinical software for GPs, adds to the list of erstwhile National Programme for IT projects. The board, which will take responsibility for running the NHS in England from next April, has added GPSoC to the projects it will continue to fund nationally. These already include the N3 national broadband network used across both England and Scotland (the successor to which has been dubbed N4) and the Choose & Book electronic booking system.
- Top of the apps: Evidence suggests that the medical app market is continuing to grow. More than 40,000 applications are now available to smartphone consumers, many of them pitched at healthcare professionals and members of the public interested in their health and wellbeing. A survey carried out by EHI Mobile showed that the top five most downloaded health and medical apps in the UK for the iPhone and iPad include learning about anatomy, pregnancy and getting enough sleep.
- Hospitals to pay price for failure to innovate: From this autumn, patients across the country will be able to see whether their local hospital or health authority is rationing care as part of government plans to eradicate “postcode prescribing” in the NHS. Every hospital and commissioning body in England will be forced to start publishing statistics showing how many of its patients are being provided with the latest drugs and treatments recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. The move will mean that, by next year, every hospital and health trust will be rated using an “innovation scorecard” allowing patients to compare services and treatments offered in different parts of the country. Head of the NHS, Sir David Nicholson will announce the plans next month.
- NHS receives 3,000 patient complaints a week: Official figures have shown an increase of 8.2% from 2010/11 to 2011/12 in complaints against GPs in England. Almost half of the complaints made about services in hospitals and community health services were about hospital doctors and surgeons while more than one in five of the complaints were made about nurses, midwives and health visitors. NHS Confederation deputy chief executive David Stout said: “An increase in the number of complaints doesn’t necessarily mean that patients are less satisfied with their care. Although it sounds peculiar, a rise in complaints data can actually mean that patients feel more engaged with their local NHS and want to work with it to improve.”
- Extent of harm to patients under NHS care revealed: More than 20 per cent of patients suffer avoidable harm during their care at some trusts, a national survey of frontline NHS services has revealed. The NHS Safety Thermometer shows that 9% of all NHS patients have suffered an avoidable harm. This means major improvements are required if the NHS is to meet the Department of Health’s target to deliver “harm-free care” to 95 % of patients “by 2012” . Jacqui Fletcher, fellow of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence and tissue viability nurse, said: “The exercise is raising the profile of patient safety at board level, and encouraging trusts to make changes that ground level clinicians have been wanting to do for a long time.”
Opinion
NHS overseas franchise plan is key to future of the health service
Richard Vize writing for Guardian Professional provides an insightful review into the government’s announcement of a renewed push to market the NHS abroad. He argues that working internationally will encourage the best hospitals to stay at the forefront of modern practice and benefit patients – but there are risks.
“But if the risks are faced up to and managed, the long-term benefits to NHS patients of more international collaboration could be substantial. Hunkering down and saying the health service has not got time to work abroad is the creed of inertia. Faster improvement in patient care must be the overriding goal.
“Working internationally need not be a distraction from the pursuit of greater productivity at home. Indeed, some of the most exciting developments in countries such as India and Brazil are focused on delivering high quality at low cost. The Aravind eye care system in India is just one example from which the NHS can learn. The NHS as a whole is often slow to adopt new approaches to care; more international work can help push reform through the system.”
CCGs urged to be ‘cautious’ over nationwide telehealth rollout
Adam Steventon, senior research analyst at the Nuffield Trust and project lead on the Whole Systems Demonstrator (WSD) programme, in an exclusive interview with Pulse admits that GP commissioners should be cautious about rolling out telehealth initiatives too quickly as they may have ‘negative consequences’ for patients. The admission comes despite recent evidence from the government’s WSD pilot showing telehealth programmes can reduce mortality and hospital admissions.
“Conflicting results from different trials of telehealth meant any extension of its use should be tracked so its impact in different settings can be monitored. The [WSD] evaluation will produce a lot of very interesting findings. However, they will only relate to telehealth as implemented in this particular trial in these areas of England. We don’t know yet is what impact telehealth would have if implemented outside of a trial setting in other areas.
“While the mortality finding is a strong incentive in itself to roll out telehealth, there must be some caution to try and understand why telehealth has this effect in this setting and the opposite in another setting – how can we avoid the negative consequences of rolling out telehealth nationally.”
Paper-Lite and Beyond – Shaping the future of electronic healthcare in the NHS
Neil Darvill, director of health informatics at St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust makes the case in eHealth News.eu that setting the NHS free from paper-based systems is essential for improving healthcare, and that for his trust, that goal is in sight, due to a huge digitisation project that has allowed hospital paper medical records to be consigned to the bin!
“Within months I hope that most of our patient services will be run entirely electronically. The main foundations are already in place, as clinicians have instant and easy electronic access to patient records. Our computerised bed management system is being upgraded and we will shortly complete the rollout of electronic order communications (OCS) and e-discharge. Next, we will ensure that the notes clinicians take during each patient consultation go straight onto the computer – eliminating the last widely used paper-based process.
“Our achievements to date, especially the shift to electronic patient records, have put us in an enviable position – right at the forefront of NHS informatics. Just as important is that they pave the way for new developments that will mobilise the full potential of our IT to enable clinicians to improve patient outcomes.
“In this we are fortunate to have a partner in IMS MAXIMS – the company behind our EPR, OCS, bed management and e-discharge systems – because of its interest in the research and development of solutions that are genuinely geared to customer needs. By combining our skills we can use the paper-lite healthcare environment to make rapid progress towards something even more profound.”
The new NHS’ greatest risk
What is the greatest risk to the new NHS, ponders Alastair McLellan, editor of HSJ (subscription required)? The answer is not financial meltdown or reform fatigue, although they remain serious threats. It is alignment.
“This has always been a challenge in a healthcare system as large, complex and comprehensive as the NHS. But the essential characteristics of the transformation the service is undergoing magnifies the difficulty of aligning priorities, policies and ways of working. The NHS’s new approach is designed to mean local decisions will have greater weight than central diktats; the actions of regulators and the precedents they create should trump “top-down targets”; effective risk management should replace “doing what you’re told” as the best way to prosper; the increased contribution of the private sector will create a mixed economy of organisations with different cultures – a trend echoed by a change in the makeup of the service’s leaders, with clinicians bringing a different mindset to decision making; and managing inputs should be replaced by the more demanding task of improving outcomes.
“Finally, there is the speed with which some elements of the reforms are being pushed through.
“Every one of these changes makes it potentially harder for the NHS to act in an aligned way.”
Payment system reform: six lessons for the NHS from Europe
Former acting chief executive for NHS Confederation and now director of Global Health Reform at KPMG, Nigel Edwards offers his opinion on NHS payment reform as guest blogger for the Nuffield Trust.
“Using the payment system is increasingly seen as one of the major levers to change the way that health care is provided.
“With responsibility for pricing architecture passing to the National Commissioning Board and the pricing function moving to Monitor, now is a good time to be reflecting on some of the lessons from the NHS and elsewhere in the world. A new report by the Nuffield Trust, produced with support from KPMG, gathers together learning from several European countries.”
Edwards goes on to distill six lessons which range from: policy makers over estimating the power of payment systems to fundamentally reshape the health care system; through to introducing new payment models – such as year of care tariffs or the extension of tariff models into areas where it is harder to categorise patients and is more difficult and takes longer than expected.
Highland Marketing blog
This week Susan Venables takes a ride on the healthcare technology innovation roller coaster. However, she questions if it’s being driven fast enough by the Department of Health for the NHS to jump on board!!
