The implications of the government’s overhaul of the NHS dominated the minds of those working in and for the health service in 2010.
The most read report on EHI Primary Care this year was the announcement that primary care trusts were to be scrapped as part of a massive reorganisation of NHS structures, outlined in the white paper ‘Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS.’
Three other reports in the top ten most read stories also covered the implications of the white paper. The number two slot was coverage of a letter from NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson that predicted that ‘large numbers’ of staff would lose their jobs.
The other big theme of the year was the ongoing row over the roll-out of the NHS Summary Care Record.
Another report that made it into the top ten covered the Department of Health’s decision to suspend the roll-out in April, following robust concern from the BMA that it was being rushed and patients inadequately informed.
And yet another covered July advice from Dr Paul Cundy, a former chairman of the BMA’s GP IT committee, that practices should automatically opt-out all patients from the SCR.
Perhaps surprisingly, the news that a hospital doctor in Scotland was not going to be prosecuted for accessing the Emergency Care Summaries of high profile politicians and footballers was the third-best read story of the year. But then, the report did cause outrage among many readers.
Even so, the report that attracted the most comments from readers in 2010 was the Department of Health’s decision to axe the £500m Enterprise-wide Agreement that it had signed with Microsoft.
This left NHS organisations to pay for their own server and desktop software or – some suggested – try Open Source.