NHS signs enterprise deal with Novell
NHS Connecting for Health has negotiated a £21.8m deal with infrastructure and software services supplier Novell, which it claims will make it easier for the NHS to use open source products and software. According to Novell the deal covers three main areas – identity products, desktop management and the ability for the NHS to make […]
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Scottish pharmacists receive extra IT funding
Pharmacists in Scotland are to receive £500 in the latest round of IT funding to prepare for the launch of their new contract in April 2006. The Scottish Executive Health Department (SEHD) has announced that every pharmacy contractor will receive £500 towards the cost of installing software to run an electronic minor ailment service. It will […]
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Paper sole option for patients opting out of CRS
Patients who wish to opt out of having their information recorded on the NHS Care Records Service will only be able to do so if they are prepared to have paper records, according to a GP who has mounted a long running campaign against the NCRS. Dr Paul Thornton, a GP in Kingsbury, Warwickshire, says […]
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Councils lag behind on telecare plans
A minority of councils in England are starting to put plans in place for telecare services but most have made few or no preparations, according to survey. The survey results are based on a questionnaire about telecare circulated by independent consultancy, the Telecare Alliance, to the 150 councils in England with responsibility for social services. […]
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New mothers in Wales first to have access to EHRs
New mothers are to be among the first in Wales to receive access to their own electronic health records constructed from the data held by their GPs, as a result of Informing Healthcare (IHC), the Welsh national healthcare IT programme. The scheme is part of the development of the ‘My Health On-Line’ system, which will act […]
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NPfIT support procurement enters final stretch
NHS Connecting for Health has announced that the three remaining bidders for the First Line Service Support (FLSS) contract are Capita, CSC Computer Sciences and Fujitsu. The FLSS project is intended to replace the National Service Desk, a support line that services the National Programme for IT implementation across all five clusters in England. Five […]
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Ofcom investigation dents Patientline results
Patientline, the supplier of bedside phones and entertainment for patients, has reported a 39% increase in pre-tax losses, due partly to an Ofcom investigation into its NHS contracts and incoming call charges. In addition, chairman, Derek Lewis, reports: “The financial stresses within the NHS and the delays in implementation of the major IT programme, Connecting […]
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Patient records to get quality checks
GP practices are to be paid to bring patient records up to national data accreditation standards as part of the NHS national IT programme. According to a report in Doctor magazine practices will have to gain accreditation of their records before they can upload coded information onto the NHS data spine, being built as part […]
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Local trust data overwritten by Choose and Book
E-Health Insider has learned that some hospitals linked to the national Choose and Book appointment booking system are having some local patient record details unexpectedly over-written each time they receive an electronic referral from the NHS spine. As a result, the affected hospitals have to manually re-enter deleted patient details — such as the patient’s […]
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Common exception reporting standards called for
Exception reporting rates for the Quality and Outcomes Framework need to be subject to uniform standards to ensure as many patients as possible benefit from the framework, a GP has argued this week in the British Medical Journal. Dr Stephen Corcoran, a GP in north London, says in his letter that variations in exception reporting […]
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