NHS IT, Records and Data

‘Archaic’ and ‘absurd’ fax machines banned across the NHS

10.12.18: The NHS has been banned from buying fax machines by the health secretary who has ordered a complete phase-out of the outdated machines by April 2020. Taking effect from January 2019, NHS trusts will instead be required to invest in new tech...

Major IT supplier agrees to pay NHS millions of pounds over service failures

07.12.18: A multimillion-pound settlement deal has been reached between NHS Digital and EMIS Group after the private IT supplier admitted to providing misleading information about the quality of its service. In a market announcement, EMIS Group confi...

‘Transformational’ genome sequencing project reaches 100,000 patients target

06.12.18: Matt Hancock has announced that the world’s largest gene sequencing project in healthcare has reached its original target of sequencing 100,000 whole genomes from NHS patients. People with rare diseases, cancer patients, and family me...

Technology first

05.12.18: With the latest policy document from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) heralding a new ‘technology-first’ ethos for the NHS, Lee Edwards, IT director at NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS), discusses why this must in...

New framework addresses the importance of digital transformation for the public sector

04.12.18: Ryan Reed, head of public sector sales at Swiss Post Solution (SPS), reveals the new ESPO 390 framework, which can help address the need for digital transformation across the NHS.  The administrative and financial burden...

Three new non-executive directors join the NHS Supply Chain board

03.12.18: The NHS Supply Chain has appointed three new non-executive directors to join its board. Professor Heather Tierney-Moore, Steven Glew, and Heather Benjamin will join Supply Chain Coordination Limited (SCCL), the management board of the new N...

NHS staff frozen out of more than a million accounts as email network goes down

03.12.18: The NHS has suffered a national outage to its email system, causing staff to be locked out of more than a million accounts over the weekend. NHS Digital issued a ‘severity 1’ notice, warning of a “complete shutdown”...

New voluntary drug pricing deal could cut NHS medicine bill by almost £1bn

28.11.18: A new voluntary scheme to control the pricing of branded medicines could provide patients with earlier access to new medicines and save the NHS almost a £1bn on its annual medicine bill. It will introduce an annual 2% cap on the growt...

The digital health revolution

28.11.18: As digital health and artificial intelligence (AI) clinical lead at NHS England, Dr Indra Joshi is involved in several national initiatives designed to realise the full potential of digital health and technology in the NHS. Here, she explains th...

CQC praises formerly struggling trust after ‘continuous improvements’ and ‘outstanding’ paramedics sees ratings recover

27.11.18: The North West Ambulance Service has jumped from a ‘requires improvement’ rating two years ago to ‘good’ after the CQC found “continuous improvement” and “outstanding” work by paramedics. The...

North Cumbria patients ‘suffered harm’ due to delays, says CQC

23.11.18: Limited bed supply and delays in transferring patients in two north Cumbria hospitals have resulted in “several serious incidents” and some “suffering harm,” the CQC has reported. The health inspectorate raised conce...

Sir David Behan appointed new Health Education England chair

16.11.18: Sir David Behan has been appointed as the new chair of Health Education England (HEE). The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced that the former chief executive of the CQC will chair HEE for three years, starting from 1 Dece...

Capita could lose divisive cancer screening contract as part of major NHS England review

16.11.18: NHS bosses have announced a major overhaul of cancer screening programmes in the wake of the revelation that Capita failed to send almost 50,000 invitations and results to women after cervical cancer screenings. Professor Sir Mike Richards...

Capita must be stripped of ‘shambolic’ national contract after failing to send over 48,000 letters

15.11.18: The BMA has written to NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens expressing “extreme concern” over Capita after being made aware that the outsourced contractor failed to send up to 48,500 pieces of correspondence to women who had had...

NHS Wales given damning ‘wake-up call’ over its outdated IT systems

14.11.18: The Welsh Assembly has published a damming “wake-up call” on efforts to modernise NHS IT systems in Wales, raising “serious question marks” over a “culture of self-censorship and denial.” An assembly inqu...