News in brief
HSCIC Digital Leaders programme launched: Key NHS IT and clinical staff will connect with the people developing and running national systems for health and care as part of a Digital Leaders programme, launched this week reported DigitalHealth.net. The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) and Digital Health Intelligence have worked together on developing the programme. The pilot aims to directly connect HSCIC senior managers to their key customers across the health and care sector: chief information officers (CIO) and chief clinical information officers (CCIO), primarily working in NHS trusts, clinical commissioning groups, and local authorities. At the centre of the community are the CCIO and Health CIO Networks, which have been steadily developed since 2011. Dr Joe McDonald, CCIO for Northumberland Tyne and Wear Mental Health Trust and chair of the CCIO Network, said: “Successful IT in healthcare comes when local and national organisations work absolutely hand in hand with each other, each playing their role as partners in a trusting relationship. The Digital Leadership programme will help cement that relationship,” he said. The pilot programme will run for six months from 30 September 2015 to 31 March 2016.
NHS underinvests in data capabilities, says Public Health England chief knowledge officer: Public Health England’s chief knowledge officer, John Newton, called for better use of data in the NHS to drive decision-making, reported Computer Weekly. The NHS collects more data than ever before, and as the amount of data increases, the NHS needs to use it to improve outcomes, said Newton. The controversial Care.data programme, which aims to extract anonymous patient data from GPs to a central database, was set up to help commissioners make decisions to drive improvements in patient care. However, due to lack of communication around what would happen with the data, among other issues, the programme has been a disaster so far, the publication reported. Newton commented on the ease of taking widely available data and presenting it “in a way that was ‘nice’ that had enormous impact”. Newton also stressed the importance of involving clinicians in the analysis of clinical data to make sure the interpretation of the data is correct. “We need healthcare systems that are data driven and invest in capacity and capability,” he said.
NHS England seeks freeze in better care fund transfer: NHS England is seeking a freeze in the sum the NHS is required to pool with local government in the Better Care Fund, reported Health Service Journal (HSJ, subscription required). It is one of the requests from the national body in negotiations for the government’s comprehensive spending review in November, several senior sources confirmed. The Better Care Fund, designed to fund social care and out of hospital support services, was a flagship health and care policy of the coalition government. In April, Jeremy Hunt told HSJ it meant social care would benefit from the £8bn real terms spending growth his party promised to the NHS between 2016 and 2020. Hunt also said: “I think [the fund] will be extended and accelerated because for all intents and purposes we are now saying that we want to fund a fully merged health and social care system.” However, several sources with knowledge of negotiations told HSJ that NHS England was asking for the national minimum better care fund sum to remain fixed at £3.8bn in 2016-17, and ideally for it not to be uplifted with inflation. It has argued both NHS and social care services need to be properly funded independently, not through a larger transfer. NHS England agrees with local government and social care representatives that greater funding is needed for care, as services are suffering and some are at risk of crisis.
Care integration key to closing NHS efficiency gap, says TDA boss: Much of the £22bn efficiency savings projected in the NHS Five Year Forward View is expected to come from the successful integration of health and social care services, a senior NHS figure has said, reported Public Finance. NHS England’s Five Year Forward View identified a £30bn shortfall by 2020/21 and called for £8bn of additional funding and a £22bn efficiency improvement. The government has since confirmed that it will provide the additional funding by the end of the parliament, and Bob Alexander, chief executive of the NHS Trust Development Authority, said this was now the only certain part of the plan. “I’m telling you now, a big slug of the £22bn is expected to arrive out of integrated care of one form or another, and that is cash cost [savings].” There are successful examples of care integration at individual service level, such as diabetes care. However, there was now an expectation around projects such as the Better Care Fund and the vanguard projects to lead integration. Terry Willows, deputy programme director of the Better Care Fund said the main focus on the 151 BCF plans in the current year was on developing integrated care solutions, supporting reablement and increasing care at home. The highest proportion of investment was going to schemes with an intermediate or integrated care element.
NHS and fire service sign new consensus to help vulnerable and reduce winter pressures: Firefighters have joined forces with the NHS in a new health partnership to tackle health and social problems and reduce winter pressures, reported NHS England. Five organisations will sign a new ‘Consensus’ – NHS England, Public Health England, the Fire and Rescue Service, Age UK and the Local Government Association – promising to work together to make changes throughout their workforce. The new ‘Consensus’ sets out how the organisations can work together to encourage local action to prevent or minimise service demand and improve the quality of life of people with long-term conditions. It means fire fighters across the country will aim to carry out more ‘Safe and Well’ checks in people’s homes when they visit. The fire fighters will aim to extend the 670,000 home safety checks already carried out each year into a ‘Safe and Well’ visit to help particularly the vulnerable and those with complex conditions. As well as reducing the risks of a fire, they will aim to reduce health risks such as falls, loneliness and isolation which will also reduce visits to A&E, broken hips and depression.
NHS Number use becomes law: The NHS Number must be used as a single patient identifier across the health and social care system, under a new law which came into effect last week, reported DigitalHealth.net. The Department of Health (DH) said that there is a: “legal requirement for health and adult social care organisations to share information with each other when they are working together to provide direct care and treatment to a patient”. To ensure this is happening, health professionals will now have to use a patient’s NHS Number as a single identifier to ensure the information they share is accurate and up-to-date. The DH said use of the number when sharing information will reduce the chance of mistakes, drive up patient safety and make the sharing of information between care settings more efficient. Life sciences minister George Freeman said: “This is great news for patients and their carers, who all too often have to repeat their diagnosis at each stage of treatment. So we are mandating that all health and care providers make sure the next person treating the patient knows their history.” He added: “Having an up to date patient record is vital for patient safety, reducing misdiagnosis or treatment errors, and empowering patients and their carers and loved ones with up to date information on their care.”
New NHS partnership launches suite of data reporting tools for A&E, procurement and finance savings: Two leading NHS organisations have come together to launch a new joint vision that will help the health service to harness the power of data and technology and address some of the most-pressing challenges facing the NHS, reported Building Better Healthcare. Developed by the NHS for the NHS, HealthIntell is a development between business support provider, NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS), and business intelligence experts at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust (WWL). David Morris, managing director of NHS SBS, said: “HealthIntell gives us the platform to deliver health technology that can provide good care that costs less. Its user-friendly applications support informed decision-making across the NHS, and will help make the health service more effective and efficient.” Rob Forster, Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust’s acting chief executive, said: “At WWL we see 280 patients come into A&E every day, of which 60 will need a bed. To cope with this, and to adhere to waiting time targets, we realised that having an accurate picture of what is happening is crucial. We can now plan ahead to meet demand.”
PM’s seven-day pilots question wisdom of weekend opening: The Prime Minister’s flagship scheme to extend GP access appears to be rapidly running out of steam, an investigation by Pulse has claimed. The study revealed that, of the 18 pilots that were given funding in April 2014 to offer seven-day access, eight in total have now either cut weekend or evening hours, or stopped providing the service altogether. The initial funding, worth £50m, runs out this month and NHS England and the clinical commissioning groups involved in the pilots are remaining tight-lipped about whether the schemes will continue, it was reported. Pulse has learned seven-day access schemes in north-west London, Devon, Slough and Derbyshire have reduced their hours from their original plans. This is in addition to four other schemes that reported doing so earlier in the year, meaning almost half of all pilots have scaled back their ambitions before the pilots end. However, despite dwindling enthusiasm for the “Challenge Fund” pilots, health secretary, Jeremy Hunt has told MPs that it will become a requirement for GPs to ensure patients are able to book appointments from 8am to 8pm, seven days a week – even if they do not provide the services themselves.
Integrated health IT system planned: Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust is considering moving to an integrated system to cover both its community and mental health services, reported DigitalHealth.net. The trust uses Silverlink in mental health and TPP’s SystmOne in community, the latter of which was acquired as part of the National Programme for IT under a national contract that ends in July 2016. Richard Banks, executive director of business assurance, said: “With the national contract coming to an end this is an opportunity to pause and look a little bit on the horizon and ask if there is a single system out there that would do what our current two systems do and do it better. If not, then two systems together in an integrated way that could provide better than what we currently have.” The trust has already completed an ‘early assessment’ of several systems, including Servelec’s Rio, CSC’s Lorenzo, Advance Health and Care’s Carenotes and both existing systems. Banks said there were no frontrunners and the trust is still to go to final procurement. He suggested the trust may use the NHS Shared Business Services framework during procurement.
GP2GP allows large file transfer: Large patient record files can be sent electronically between GP practices with the launch of the latest version of GP2GP, reported DigitalHealth.net. Emis Health has been awarded full rollout approval for GP2GP version 2.2a for users of its Emis Web clinical system. More than 400 practices already have the new functionality. GP2GP is a national system used to securely transfer more than 100,000 electronic patient records a month between GP practices in England. Use of the system was made mandatory for GPs as part of the latest GMS contract. More than 7,500 practices are live with GP2GP, but restrictions on file sizes have meant many patient records cannot be transferred. Emis began a controlled roll-out of v2.2a functionality as part of the Emis Web release 5.7 on 14 September which allows larger records to be transferred and removes the limitation on the number of attachments. Dr Shaun O’Hanlon, Emis chief medical officer, said: “Patients with the most complex needs can now benefit from having their records shared securely, electronically, and with cost savings for practices. GP2GP v2.2a will be activated across the whole EMIS Web estate in a phased roll out.”
Orion Health to deliver in-store clinical solution for Boots stores throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland: Global population health management firm Orion Health has signed a contract with retail pharmacy giant Boots UK Limited to provide technology to enable community pharmacists across UK and Ireland to deliver enhanced in-store clinical services, reported eHealthNews.eu. Boots plans to use the firm’s care coordination and portal technology across 2,400 stores to improve services which have previously been provided on paper or in a variety of IT systems. This will provide the information that pharmacies need as they strive to deliver the lower-cost, convenient community-based health service that underpins many of the changes happening to the NHS. Retail pharmacy is a new market development for Orion Health, whose technology is used by over 70 organisations throughout the NHS in England, as well as in health and social care in Northern Ireland and many of Scotland’s health boards. “The UK’s drive to integrated care needs the right partnerships and technology to be in place to deliver care that meets people’s needs from hospitals to the high street. Our work with high-profile brand such as Boots builds on our existing services and further demonstrates our commitment to being the platform for patient-centred care,” said UK and Ireland managing director Colin Henderson.
University College London Hospital tracks patients using app: University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) has developed an app to view patients’ results and track them in hospital, reported Computer Weekly. The trust has worked with IT supplier CGI to create the iOS app, called FindMyPatient, which users claim saves, on average, half an hour a day. Clinicians can use the app to look up imaging and pathology results, as well as noting which bed the patient is in to keep track of them as they move around different wards. Previously, clinicians needed to use a printout from hospital terminals, or phone the wards to find the patient. After trialling the app over the past three months, the trust is considering rolling it out across UCLH. Colorectal consultant at UCLH, Richard Cohen, said the app has made a real difference to his ability to access patient information. “The app is a great example of how well-conceived IT can help clinicians balance the pressures of modern healthcare,” he added.
Medical devices vulnerable to hackers: Thousands of critical medical systems, such as MRI machines, are available for hackers to access online, according to researchers. Some 68,000 medical systems from a large unnamed US health group have been exposed, they said. Security researchers Scott Erven and Mark Collao presented their findings at hacker conference Derbycon, reported the BBC. They also revealed that they had created fake medical devices which attracted thousands of hackers. Interfaces connected to medical systems were available via search engine Shodan, the researchers told conference-goers. The researchers used Shodan, a search engine specifically for internet-connected devices, to look for exposed software from a range of health treatment providers, such as radiology and paediatric clinics, as well as one large healthcare organisation. They told tech news website The Register that they ended up with “thousands of misconfigurations and direct attack vectors”. Hospitals whose networking equipment and administrative computers were exposed online risked attacks and the exposure of patient data, they said. Such information would allow attackers to build up details on health organisations, including exact information about where medical devices were housed, they added.
Wristband knows if patients have done their exercise: Back pain sufferers are to be fitted with a hi-tech wristband to monitor whether they are making an effort to improve their condition, reported The Scotsman. Researchers at Robert Gordon University (RGU) in Aberdeen have been awarded around 500,000 Euro (£370,000) to design the device which aims to improve the way that lower back pain is managed. It is the fourth most common diagnosis made by GPs in the UK but one of the main ways to treat it is physical activity such as strengthening and stretching exercises. Dr Nirmalie Wiratunga and Dr Stewart Massie from the School of Computing Science and Digital Media worked with colleagues in Norway for three years to develop the monitoring SelfBACK technology. Dr Wiratunga, who led RGU’s funding bid, said: “Essentially, we would be using wearable technology to monitor whether a patient is following a plan of exercise and stretching developed for them by a GP. It would be able to monitor if a patient was adhering to that plan and if not, look at how we can build in prompts and triggers to encourage them to do so.”
Agfa HealthCare selected as approved supplier for NHS SBS in Healthcare Clinical Information Systems: Agfa HealthCare has announced that it has been selected as one of the approved suppliers in the NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) Healthcare Clinical Information Systems Framework, reported eHealthNews.eu. This four-year, £1.25bn framework – which can be extended by an additional two years – speeds up and simplifies the healthcare IT systems tender process for healthcare providers. The new framework, which runs initially from 16 February 2015 through 15 February 2019, aims to provide trusts and the wider public sector with a more agile and cost effective tendering process for their technology needs. NHS providers can localise their requirements with ‘mini-competitions’ amongst approved suppliers, reducing the time and costs of procuring complex systems. “Our ORBIS integrated clinical and urgent care suite fits perfectly into the NHS SBS framework,” said Karen Middlehurst, enterprise business unit manager for Agfa HealthCare. “It is a comprehensive, proven solution with powerful and flexible customization features, and it supports medical, diagnostic and care workflows.”
Oxford University Hospitals awarded foundation trust status: Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust can now set its own financial and operational priorities for John Radcliffe, Churchill, Horton and the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, reported the BBC. As part of the change local people can become members and serve as governors. Chief executive, Sir Jonathan Michael admitted it was not a guarantee of success but said finances were good. He added: “You’ve still got to run the business effectively, you’ve got to make sure you deliver the operational performance, you’ve got to make sure the books balance. If you lose control of that, then you get into difficulties as Addenbrooke’s Hospital has done.” He said the status, which is granted by Monitor – the regulator of NHS Services in England, was a “recognition of the quality of the services provided and the efficiency of the organisation”. Becoming a foundation trust means decision making is devolved from central government to local organisations and communities, so it can manage its services to suit the specific needs of the local community.
Shared record scheme wins EHI Awards: A shared care record scheme in the South West of England was the overall winner of the EHI Awards 2015, held in London last week. The Connecting Care Partnership won the award for Best use of IT to support integrated healthcare services and was also crowned overall winner on the night. Connecting Care shares real-time patient data between GPs, community providers, local authorities and three acute trusts via an Orion portal. Director of informatics services and chief information officer for health at NHS Wales Informatics Service, Andrew Griffiths, took the ‘healthcare IT champion of the year’ award, decided by the readers of DigitalHealth.net. This year’s EHI Awards, organised by Informa Life Sciences, received almost 300 entries. Other award winners included: Rising Star 2015, sponsored by Elsevier Clinical Solutions: Feliz Vaal at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Best use of IT to support healthcare business efficiency, sponsored by Lexmark Healthcare: Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Best use of a social media to deliver a healthcare campaign, sponsored by Highland Marketing: Diabetes.co.uk. Click here for a full list of winners.
Opinion
It’s stupid to believe that the NHS is still ‘the best in the world’
Instead of holding on to outdated notions about how good the NHS is, we urgently need to fix it, writes Alex Proud the founder of Proud Galleries and Proud Camden.
“I’m not sure the NHS is the best health service in the world. It often strikes me that we Brits are very good at telling ourselves we’re the best in the world. Best army, best civil service and so on.
“When it comes to this peculiar form of defensive smugness, the NHS is in a category of its own. Whenever I turn on the news or open a paper there’s always someone banging on about the sanctity of “our NHS.” Amongst ourselves, and at the same time as bigging ourselves up, we’re normally quite happy to slag off the things we say we’re good at. Hate the army, the civil service useless… but don’t you say a word against our NHS. Do that and by God you cross a line. This attitude is stupid. The truth is the NHS is not the best health service in the world, bar none. It’s good in some areas and bad in others. Yes, I know its great value for money compared to the US, but this is a meaningless comparison. Comparing yourself favourably to the place that gives the worst value does not make you good value. It’s like saying your human rights record is brilliant because you’re not Saudi Arabia.
“The real reason I hate this mixture of self-congratulation and sentimentality though, is that it’s really unhelpful. It allows us to overlook the NHS’s failings and pat ourselves on the back. It demonises those who dare to criticise, shuts down debate and ensures that every trivial change becomes an emotionally and politically charged hot potato. It gets in the way of making the NHS better. The NHS needs friends at the moment. But it needs real friends. The kind of friends who don’t just tell you you’re brilliant and amazing. The kind of friends who tell what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.”
Let’s talk: Building a public sector social network
Dr Tony Willis, clinical lead for IT at Hammersmith and Fulham CCG, explains how he created a niche social network for healthcare professionals and offers advice on using technology to encourage communication and collaboration in the public sector.
“Recently, I was tasked with increasing engagement for the SystmOne National User Group (SNUG), a group responsible for supporting users of SystmOne, a clinical system supporting the ‘one patient, one record’ model of healthcare. Here’s how I tackled this challenge to increase engagement and what I learnt along the way.
“SNUG users, who are healthcare professionals across the NHS, had previously communicated through an email list that was receiving hundred of emails a day. Conversations were messy and fragmented and users were finding it difficult to engage. By moving to a platform where conversations were stored centrally, we could extend conversations’ lifecycle and let people track responses easily. Users can now access any conversation they want and keep track of different discussions across each thread quickly.
“Similarly to widespread social networks, we developed a way for SNUG users to customise their profile and select interests relevant to them – from Asthma to X-rays. This meant they could choose only to be updated on important discussions without being weighed down by irrelevancy.
“Whatever technology you choose to build or buy, you have to do it in a way that avoids obsolescence. For SNUG this was another reason CSL Web built our social network using the open source framework. The large community contributing to the code means that it is always being improved to keep pace with the modern web. There were a range of options out there but CSL Web recommended SilverStripe based on its previous use in government.
“SNUG is one of the first of its kind – a niche social network built for the public sector enabling communication and collaboration in a way familiar to users. There are already 700 clinicians signed up to the site, and, as this number continues to grow, it is only going to become more important.”
How mHealth can benefit mental health
Mental ill health in young people is a significant issue; and technology can play an important part in addressing it, says Jamie Prangnell. The managing director of Appadoodle, shares his story of working with a mental health trust and young people themselves in developing a series of ‘game-style’ apps that aim to help improve young people’s chances of recovery.
“Mental ill health is a huge issue for young people. It is estimated that one in five young people have a mental health problem in any given year. Further research says that around half of all mental disorders begin before the age of 15, and 75% by 24.
“With ever-increasing pressures on young people around education, work and home life, there is a sad inevitability that the issue needs addressing. Tools that enable prevention and early intervention are crucial on the road to recovery, especially for illnesses such as psychosis. And clinicians are seeing technology as an essential part of the solution.
“Many companies are working with the NHS on app development, and Appadoodle’s involvement has been with clinicians at Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (BSMHFT). Early intervention in psychosis and other teams from BSMHFT wanted to look at new ways of engaging with young people, and apps were one such option.
“The success of health apps in the mental health field will require young people to engage with them and use them. There is a growing evidence base that the Internet and apps are an effective medium for delivering evidence-based interventions such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Whilst Appadoodle plans to work with academic and other partners to evaluate and promote the effectiveness of all the apps, we need to keep listening to end users and clinicians about how we can help realise the vision of mHealth for mental health.”
Blog
Time to celebrate social media success and congratulate EHI Awards winners, writes account director, Chris Marsom.
