This has felt like a very long general election campaign; and there’s still another two weeks to polling day. Still, a healthcare debate at the King’s Fund made an attempt to look beyond 7 May.

The public debate about the NHS has been about whether the parties will find £8 billion of extra funding by 2020-21, how many extra staff that will buy, and how fast people will get to see a GP. The King’s Fund debate asked why anyone thinks that £8 billion will be enough to help bridge a funding gap that could reach £30 billion by 2020-21, given the immediate crisis in acute trusts and social care, and the cost of all those election give-aways.

Also, how the further reform required to find £22 billion of efficiency savings will be handled; and whether it will lead to another huge re-organisation, or a lot of piecemeal, experimental change. Sadly, IT barely came up. But the answers to these questions will shape the NHS in which EHI readers work, and the systems they need to deploy.

Meanwhile, congratulations to Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, which has joined the very select band at the top of EHI’s Clinical Digital Maturity Index, thanks to an impressively large and rapid deployment of e-prescribing.

Parties clash on NHS funding and reform

The health spokesmen of England's three main political parties have clashed over the future funding and structure of the NHS at a King’s Fund debate ahead of the general election.

Oxford hits height in digital maturity

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust has reached the top of EHI's Clinical Digital Maturity Index following the roll-out of e-prescribing across all directorates.

Galileo gets first UK site

Royal Stoke University Hospital is the first UK hospital to go-live with NoemaLife’s Galileo electronic prescribing and medicines administration system.

Value of apps and wearables questioned

The potential for smartphone apps and wearable devices to have an effect on health outcomes has come under question in an article published by the BMJ.

Accenture looks set to take over NHSmail

The Health and Social Care Information Centre has confirmed that Accenture is its nominated preferred supplier for the NHSmail service.

Scots' Dallas project fails to recruit

A £10 million digital health project in Scotland has recruited just one quarter of expected users.

Dr Foster focuses on data quality

Dr Foster has called for the quality of NHS data to be given the same priority as hitting targets.

“Why do the political parties think that £8 billion is going to be enough?”

Rob Webster, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, asks the health spokesmen of England’s three main political parties why they expect the £8 billion of central funding for the NHS promised in their manifestos to be enough to close a funding gap expected to reach £30 billion by 2020-21, given the difficulty of making £22 billion of efficiency savings, the growing deficit in social care, and the plethora of new targets and staffing pledges being made during the election campaign.

“Congratulations :-) Do you do tours? It would be nice to send up some staff so they can see what the future looks like.”

While Googling gently around the interweb, the diary was delighted to discover that the BBC is planning to make a drama series about Dr Foster. Because it is surely time for prime time drama to give up on A&E, to move off the wards, and to embrace the excitement of data collection and statistical analysis. Never mind actors in scrubs wielding scalpels. It’s time for stars in business suits with slide rules.

Sadly, a closer reading of the breathless exclusive secured by the Hertfordshire Mercury revealed that Dr Foster will, in fact, be a five part drama about a female GP, Gemma Foster, “whose life unravels when she suspects her husband is having an affair” and who “embarks on an investigation that shakes her to the core.” Bet that wouldn’t have happened if she’d set him a good set of KPIs and kept track of them on a dashboard…