Scotland chooses Anite for social care integration
Public sector IT provider Anite and the Scottish Executive have signed a national contract that aims to deliver inter-agency access to health and social care information. Anite’s contract with the Scottish Executive means that in nine local authorities its social care product SWIFT will be integrated with Scotland’s eCare Multi-Agency Stores which hold health and […]
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BT said to be considering iSoft bid
BT was reported at the weekend to be drawing up plans to bid for iSoft, the troubled health software company at the centre of the NHS Connecting for Health IT programme. The Sunday Times yesterday reported that BT, which is the largest single contractor in the £12.4bn NHS IT programme, was weighing a possible bid […]
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Less than 1.5% of electronic prescriptions seamless
E-Health Insider has learned that of the 1.6m electronic prescriptions issued by the Electronic Prescription Service, just under 30,000 have been seamlessly sent and received all the way through to dispensing. Out of the 1.6m scripts created electronically by GPs, just 29,386 have then been sent over the NHS spine, received and called down by […]
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Unison condemns offshore medical transcription
NHS trusts that outsource the transcription of medical notes to South Africa, the Philippines and India received a sharp rebuke from health union, Unison, yesterday. General secretary, Dave Prentis, speaking at the union’s annual conference this week, condemned the outsourcing as “a very dangerous practice.” The union has accumulated anecdotal evidence of potentially life-threatening mistakes […]
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GP system users ‘super’ group to be formed
A new user group covering all the suppliers involved in the GP Systems of Choice (GPSoC) initiative is being set up by NHS Connecting for Health and guidance on the minimum infrastructure required under the initiative is to be issued soon. The GPSoC proposals, designed to counter concerns from practices that they face pressure to switch suppliers, were announced in March […]
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Teachers’ TV offers e-learning lesson to clinicians
Medical professions could learn a great deal from the education sector in video-based online learning, particularly from projects such as Teachers’ TV, a symposium in London organised by the BMA stresses today. The TV channel, which delivers full-length streaming video online that aims to help teachers and other members of the education sector further their […]
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City Hospitals Sunderland rolls out e-prescribing
City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust has rolled out electronic prescribing throughout inpatient areas of the trust. The project required the specification and development of a new module by US vendor, Meditech, which has been extensively anglicised for the UK, plus a programme of business change by clinical staff. David Miller, business manager for pharmacy at […]
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CfH gives World Cup red card
NHS Connecting for Health, the agency responsible for NHS IT, has shown the red card to NHS staff trying to access World Cup match coverage online. It announced yesterday that it has banned users of NHS computers from accessing video and audio streaming of the World Cup, from broadcasters such as the BBC and TalkSport […]
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GPs and their families urged to boycott NHS ‘spine’
GP representatives are advising GPs and their families to consider withdrawing themselves from the NHS spine “as an example to the nation” because of concerns about the confidentiality of demographic data. Last week’s local medical committees’ conference voted in favour of a proposal to advise GPs to consider withdrawing from the spine after hearing about […]
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June C+B target for practices scrapped
The June target for referrals through Choose and Book has been scrapped to allow GP practices more time to earn the incentive money in the revised GMS contract. The directed enhanced service (DES) for choice and booking which began in April this year set a deadline of June 2006 when practices were expected to refer […]
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