Everybody knows that the NHS cannot introduce new ways of working to meet the pressing financial challenges on it without using IT to plan out new services, and give those working in them access to medical records and modern decision support.

There’s also a growing recognition that giving patients access to a lot of this information, and then encouraging them to do some of the work, cannot remain a nice-to-have or bolt-on. But the practicalities of doing all those have barely begun to be tackled.

This, surely, is why there has been so much interest in Emis co-founder David Stables’ decision to invest in a new charitable trust, Endeavour Health, which wants to ‘kickstart’ the move towards interoperability and work towards providing every citizen in the country with access to a personalised care management system.

The ground-laying work certainly needs to be done. And it would be nice if the NHS and the healthcare IT industry could get behind one initiative to get it done and get it used. So is the time right for Endeavor to find the terra incognita that everyone hopes is out there?

Stables kickstarts 'great endeavour'

Emis co-founder Dr David Stables has invested millions of his personal fortune in a “grand endeavour” aimed at revolutionising the way the NHS shares information.

Eleven trusts benefit from Lorenzo cash

Eleven NHS trusts in the North, Midlands and East have been approved tens of millions of pounds of central funding from the Department of Health to deploy CSC’s Lorenzo electronic patient record.

Medway 4 launches on Isle of Man

System C has launched a new generation Medway electronic patient record system, which has gone live on the Isle of Man.

NICE endorses staffing toolkits

Two safe staffing toolkits from Allocate Software are the first commercial software packages to be endorsed under a new National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence programme.

Microsoft meets secure email standard

Microsoft 365 is the first non-NHS email service to meet the secure health and social care email standard ISB1596, allowing users to send sensitive patient information.

Vote now for your champion of the year

Voting is now open for the Healthcare IT Champion of the Year, the category of the EHI Awards 2015 decided by the readers of Digital Health News.

‘Today’ presenter John Humphrys: “Isn’t the real answer – if you were starting again – you wouldn’t start from here.”

Lord Rose [the former head of Marks and Spencer, who has produced a report on the NHS and its leadership]: “Probably, yes.”

“The answer would seem to be one PHR [personal health record] to rule them all, that is vendor agnostic, and fit for use in the NHS. I hope this is it.”.

Ooh, now, what to put in the diary this week? It is, as the young people say, a no brainer. It has to be the quite wonderful, slightly surreal, clip of health secretary Jeremy Hunt being followed around by a sousaphone (in the rain, at a supermarket, in a full suit, while trying to buy a bit of garden furniture) organised by Channel 4’s ‘The Last Leg.’

A lot of Digital Health News readers may have seen this already. But it’s funny no matter how many times you watch it. And everyone else… you’re in for a treat.