05.03.14
£30m Nursing Technology Fund – winners named at NHSExpo
Nurses, midwives and care staff at 75 NHS trusts across the country will now be able to benefit from a £30m fund to buy technology.
This first round of investment from the £100m Nursing Technology Fund was announced by Beverly Bryant, director of Strategic Systems and Technology at NHS England at the Health and Care Innovation Expo 2014 yesterday.
Money from the fund, which opened for applications in December 2013, will be used by trusts to buy technologies such as digital pens, tablets and clinical software to support nurses and midwives to develop modern practices and do their jobs with greater ease.
In total 226 applications were received from 139 trusts, with 75 of them successful.
Bryant said: “This is about using modern technology to support and facilitate staff in providing compassionate and personalised nursing care.
“It is about making life easier for staff – for example a digital pen can improve record keeping and reduce paperwork, a tablet or iPad can mean a community nurse can work on the go without needing to make as many trips back to the office, which means more time spent with patients.”
Jane Cummings, chief nursing officer for NHS England, added that using these new technologies is part of a broad range of innovative ideasneeded to tackle modern healthcare challenges.
She said: “We received an amazing response to the application process and the decisions on choosing the successful projects have been difficult. It has always come back to one key question – how will this project deliver real, practical benefits for nurses, midwives and care staff and their patients.”
Giving his keynote speech at NHSExpo 2014,health secretaryJeremy Hunt said: “Technology is a means to an end in providing a more personalised care service. I am very optimistic for the future.
“This fund will allow nurses and midwives to develop new, more modern ways of working that will benefit staff and patients.”
A list of the successful trusts and case studies are available on the NHS England website.
The second round of investment from the fund will be launched by June 2014. About 300 expressions of interest have already been submitted.
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