News in brief
- GP surgeries to be ranked out of 10: As part of a drive by ministers to give people more choice over their healthcare The Telegraph has reported that GP practices are to be given a Tripadviser style mark out of 10 voted for by their patients. The scores which will be published on the internet by the NHS will be used to calculate an overall rating for each surgery.
Health Minister Lord Howe said: “As we set out in our Information Strategy, we want to make it easier for patients to find the best NHS care for them. Opening up this data is another step forward in giving people more choice. Patients will now be able to see exactly what the experience of being a patient at each GP surgery is really like. - Electronic healthcare reaches‘tipping point’: Unless action is taken to ensure better patient privacy in the NHS, the future of electronic healthcare is at risk – and so are the reputations of providers, managers and clinicians.
These were the words in a security white paper published today by FairWarning a leading organisation in patient privacy, reports Commissioning Success. The report, entitled ‘Make or Break – Digital Healthcare and Privacy Reach the Tipping Point’, draws on publisher FairWarning’s experience working with 800 hospitals and 2,500 clinics in UK, Europe and North America.
InfoSecurity Magazine also reports that a surprising feature of the UK government’s 115 page electronic health record strategy is that its Power of Information document mentions ‘security’ just once. And suggesting we have reached a tipping point Kurt Long, CEO and founder of FairWarning aid:”Electronic healthcare is among the most important advances of our times. Given the rapid and dramatic changes, it is vital for healthcare leaders to make sure they also become leaders in privacy protection. It plays a vital role in ensuring that patients build trust and receive the care they deserve, plus it helps to protect the reputations of healthcare providers. - Social enterprises to receive £19 million investment over next year: The Department of Health has announced an investment of £19m over the next year for social enterprises, on top of the £100m already invested over the last five years. The money will be used to help fund and assist more doctors, nurses and other public sector workers to run services that are tailored to their local community. Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health, said: “The NHS is full of people with new ideas about giving patients the care they need. We have already seen 6,000 Social Enterprises within the NHS offering staff more freedom and giving patients more tailored health care. The extra funding announced today will help roll out more of these services across the health service and shift power and control to frontline workers.”
A £10million ‘Mutuals Support Programme’ has also been put in place by the Cabinet Office to help develop the next wave of public sector worker run services. - Record fine for data breach to be appealed: Following the highest fine ever issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust for the loss of hundreds of hard drives, HSJ (subscription required) reports that the trust is to appeal against the £325,000 fine for a serious breach of the Data protection Act.
The hospitals chief executive Duncan Selbie said: “The trust disputed the findings and would be appealing to the Informational Tribunal, which hears appeals from notices issued by the ICO. In a time of austerity, we have to ensure more than ever that we deliver the best and safest care to our patients with the money that we have available. We simply cannot afford to pay a £325,000 fine and will therefore appeal.” - CSC admits to intentionally exaggerating NPfIT income by £15.5 million: CSC has disclosed that they are under examination by the Inland Revenue, this comes after internal auditors found that the accounts had overstated the company’s income from the NPfIT over a four-year period. In a statement to eHealth Insider, CSC said: ‘The £15.5m is an internal CSC accounting error and has no impact on our charges made to the NHS.’ A number of staff members have been suspended.
- Capita calls for delay in rollout of NHS 111 due to ‘significant risks’: Private bidder Capita has told Pulse that it had withdrawn its bid to run the service – due to replace NHS Direct nationally from April 2013 as the current tender specifications were not ‘cost-effective’. It comes as two other private companies withdrew their interest in bidding to run the Government’s new out-of-hours urgent care line.
- Majority of public oppose industrial action, survey finds: The majority of the public oppose doctors’ plans to take industrial action over the Government’s pension reforms, though almost a third support them, a YouGov poll has found. The poll of 1,546 people also reveals that the public is split over whether doctors who provide essential public services should be allowed to take industrial action at all; 48% said doctors should not have the right to strike, while 44% said they should be allowed. Pulse Today reports that health minister Simon Burns said: “The public are right to condemn these strikes.”
- Professor Mike Pringle is elected to be the 23rd president of the RCGP: Professor Pringle is due to take on his new role from Dr Iona Heath on the 16th November, having beaten five candidates including former GPC chairman Dr John Chisholm and the DH’s clinical lead for quality and productivity. Professor Pringle told GP online “I am delighted and honored to have been elected as the 23rd president of the RCGP.”
- 6.4 million LinkedIn passwords stolen: Sophos has told Computing that it believes LinkedIn has suffered a major hack and data breach, involving 6.4 million or more user passwords. A report by security firm Imperva has suggested that LinkedIn did not properly safeguard its users. “Hackers posted a humungous file – of many megabytes – containing six million-plus hashes, so the passwords are encrypted, but they’re not salted, which means it’s possible to work against them and crack them fairly easily,” said Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley.
LinkedIn has posted a statement on its blog confirming that some of the compromised passwords do correspond to LinkedIn accounts. Access to those accounts has been disabled and LinkedIn are emailing members with instructions of how to reset their passwords. - Elderly care cash ‘diverted’ by councils: It has been reported in Public Service that over £100 million that the government ear-marked for improving care of the elderly and disabled is being used by councils to prop up the existing system. NHS trusts have given councils £650 million in the last 12 months. According to a study by the health consultancy MHP Health Mandate, almost half of the local authorities are choosing to use the funds to make up for shortfalls in existing services.
- Another public sector organisation receives ICO fine: Telford and Wrekin Council have received a £90,000 fine from the Information Commissioners Office. The penalty was issued following a breach of the Data Protection Act (DPA) on two occasions involving the disclosure of confidential and sensitive personal data relating to four vulnerable children. The council has committed to taking action and also plans to introduce formal guidance on checking documents printed off its information system (‘Protocol’), and making changes to its configuration.
Opinion
The NHS navel-gazes. The world moves on
“The patient will see you now” ran the tagline of a memorable advert a few years ago. For most of us, that shift in power is merely a dream — booking a GP appointment can be absurdly difficult; weekends are “out of hours” — and on June 21 doctors definitely won’t see you because they’ll be on strike. The decision by the BMA to down stethoscopes over a generous pensions deal is misjudged: not just because they often seem to block progress, but because they’re out of touch with their patients and the public — and with a healthcare revolution sweeping across the world.
With a tide of chronic diseases rising, another challenge is to make care “integrated” seamlessly. This means getting hospital doctors, GPs, nurses and community carers to work together more effectively and flexibly. But how is this going to happen?
This article explores an interesting perspective looking at examples of clinics from the Far East to Africa, Latin America to Asia, where patients are being given the tools to take charge of their own healthcare.
NHS information strategy: powerful plan or just a vision?
“The power of information is a punchy title for the government’s health and social care strategy. But while this long-awaited document is powerful on rhetoric, it’s weak on implementation and reaction has been mixed.”
The Guardian’s reporter Gill Hitchcock finds that many insiders are sceptical about implementation of the government’s NHS information strategy. In this article she includes comments sourced from many stakeholders who will be involved in the delivery of the strategy. From Jeremy Taylor, the chief executive of pressure groups Patient Voices, Dr Paul Altmann, the chief information officer at Oxford University Hospitals NHS trust, Dr Charles Gutteridge, the DH’s national clinical director for informatics through to the King’s Fund.
Meeting the productivity challenge
Just over a year since David Nicholson announced smaller increases in the NHS budget than ever before and the requirement to make £20 billion of efficiency savings by 2014/15. In this week’s interview The Kings Fund asked John Appleby, chief economist, health policy and Nicola Hartley, director leadership development about how the NHS can respond to this challenge.
Highland Marketing blog
This week we welcome our first guest blogger Jon Lindberg, head of healthcare, Intellect. In his blog Jon reviews the need to reform NHS procurement and outlines how many of the issues and challenges can be addressed.
