From: Paul Fitzsimmons
Topic: Informatics

The concerns of the BMA over the Department of Health’s commissioning support plans (‘Clinicians’ role undermined – BMA’, NHE, Nov 23) seem somewhat misplaced. Surely, the over-riding concern of all stakeholders in the NHS and local PCTs & CCGs should be the provision of informatics that will provide greater visibility of financial performance and ultimately enable better informed clinical and pathway decisions – irrespective of who provides the technology that delivers that insight?

With that end-goal clearly in mind, the decision over which technology to use – whether a solution developed in-house or between NHS partners, or a private provider – should then come down to a set of very simple factors that include the functionality of the system and its ability to quickly and easily provide the insight required versus the cost, time and resource implications involved in the development and implementation of the solution, and the track-record and expertise of the provider.

The guidance from the Department of Health includes some highly valid points. Choice and competitiveness should indeed be advocated; PCTs and CCGs should have the ability to choose the technology provider that is right for them. They should also have the ability to procure collectively to ensure better economies of scale.

Indeed, two of our clients provide excellent examples of this open procurement: a cohort of five East of England PCTs, comprising NHS South East Essex, NHS South West Essex, NHS Norfolk, NHS Bedfordshire and NHS Hertfordshire, chose a shared-procurement to save money and improve efficiency, while the emerging Maidstone & Malling Clinical Commissioning Group selected a private informatics solution because it could not get the necessary level of insight from the in-house informatics system used by the local PCT.

These PCTs and CCGs should be applauded for making the decision that best fit their local health economies. Having started down the path to empower clinicians to place patients at the centre of the healthcare debate, let’s continue to encourage them to do so, not constrain them.

Paul Fitzsimmons, managing director, MedeAnalytics