EHealth Insider’s annual quiz of the year invites readers to test their recall of the memorable events, sayings, and jargon in NHS IT over the previous 12 months.

The 2012 quiz presented relatively few problems; although various names were put forward in answer to the question of “who left one of NPfIT’s most high profile providers, after seeing it take the biggest hit on a UK IT project, ever.”

In the end, we decided to accept either Michael Laphen, the president and chief executive of CSC who retired in February, or Guy Hains, the president of CSC responsible for the company’s work on the National Programme for IT in the NHS, who left in December.

On this basis, a number of readers got all the answers correct. The first name out of the hat to win £100 of John Lewis vouchers was Steve Bryant, a regular EHI reader who works in the West Midlands. Congratulations. The answers to the quiz are now written in below.

1. Entrances and exits:

Who arrived on the NHS IT scene in 2011, and who left?

  1. Which politician shuffled off to become leader of the House of Commons? And who took his place? Andrew Lansley and Jeremy Hunt
  2. Which head of NHS IT left to spend more time with her family? Katie Davis
  3. Who left McKesson only to pop up again heading a company named after an “agile” and “beautiful” Manx bird? Markus Bolton and Ian Denley
  4. Who left one of NPfIT’s most high profile providers, after seeing it take the biggest hit on a UK IT project, ever? Guy Hains, who announced he was leaving CSC in December
  5. Which Yorkshire trust chief executive is unlikely to receive a retirement present from the national programme, having quit to install as US system? Brian James, who took The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust out of NPfIT to implement Meditech

2. The NHS in TLAs:

NHS IT does like its three letter acronyms – or what new health minister Anna Soubry might describe as “frigging jargon”. What do these acronyms stand for?

  1. CSO / CSS / CSU Commissioning support organisation / service / unit
  2. DMIC Data management integration centre
  3. HANDI Healthcare App Network for Development and Innovation
  4. VNA Vendor Neutral Archive
  5. PROMs Patient-Reported Outcome Measures

3. The numbers game:

Put numbers to these well-known challenges and IT-related developments.

  1. The Nicholson challenge (£) £20 billion
  2. The money on offer to the next ten trusts to sign up for Lorenzo in the North, Midlands and East (£) £1m
  3. The new non-emergency number that will be rolled out in 2013 111
  4. The US public sector and community service number that Tim Kelsey would like to bring to England 311
  5. The date by which patients must have online access to their GP records. 2015

4. They said what?

Identify who was responsible for the following quotes, all of which made ‘quote of the week’ in EHI’s newsletters in 2012.

  1. "We were the victims of a crime. We subcontracted the destruction of these hard drives to a registered contractor who subsequently sold them on eBay." Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust chief executive Duncan Selbie protests about the ICO’s proposals to fine his trust for a breach of the Data Protection Act.
  2. "Frankly, without action on the way we provide health and social care, the NHS looks like a super-tanker heading for an iceberg."
    Mike Farrar, NHS Confederation chief executive, warns that cost cutting in the NHS is impacting on patient care.
  3. "I’ve done the things I wanted to achieve, I have to let the new leaders lead."
    Head of NHS IT Katie Davis, who left her job in September.
  4. "When people first come in they smile, but by the end they are impressed by what we’ve done."
    Steve Fairclough, head of health informatics at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, on its development and deployment of Lorenzo.
  5. "I think we’ve acknowledged that we made mistakes and there were problems with that IT system."
    Shadow health minister Andrew Gwynne almost nearly apologises for the National Programme for IT in the NHS.

5. It seems like yesterday…

That the National Programme for IT in the NHS was set up… but its key events all took place a decade ago. What can you remember of 2002?

  1. April: Which former Nat-West banker published a report on future NHS funding that called for a big investment in IT to make the NHS more efficient? Derek Wanless
  2. June: Which IT strategy set out a ten-year vision for the NHS that would make sure that “health records are always available for staff” and patients would have access to them?
    Delivering 21st century IT support for the NHS: national strategic programme
  3. September: Which successful implementer of London’s congestion charge arrived at Richmond House to become the first director general of NHS IT?
    Richard Granger

And can you spot any uncanny parallels with 2012?

  1. May: Which IT strategy set out a “vision” for IT in the health service that would make information available to everybody who needs it, and give patients online access to their GP records by 2015?
    The Power of Information: putting us all in charge of the health and care information we need
  2. June: Which former journalist and government transparency tsar was appointed as the NHS Commissioning Board’s first national director of patients and information?
    Tim Kelsey

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