Contact lost as NHS e-mail relaunch misfires
Contact, the new NHS e-mail service supplied by Cable and Wireless, is down for maintenance after problems at its launch on Friday, which some reports say left staff without access to their mailboxes. The Contact service has been temporarily replaced with the previous NHSmail system, as supplied by EDS. According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, the servers […]
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Furore over £31 billion figure for NPfIT
Health minister, John Hutton, today dismissed as ‘speculation’ figures that suggest total implementation costs for the National Programme for IT could rise to £31 billion. “There is no evidence whatsoever that that this will be the cost of implementing the National Programme for IT," he told a Radio 4 interviewer. Pressed to say how much […]
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NPfIT procurement unfriendly for SMEs, says OFT
SMEs are being locked out of competition in many areas of public sector procurement, including the National Programme for IT, due to the sheer size of the contracts up for grabs, a preliminary report from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has found. In a case study of IT procurement, the OFT found that participation […]
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Patient experience website breaks mental health taboo
Dipex, a charity that runs a number of support websites that contains personal testimonies from people who have suffered from illness, has launched a new module on mental health. Journalist and newsreader Jon Snow, who chaired the launch in London, said: "This is an extremely important moment because Dipex is coming of age in a […]
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Brent goes live with Graphnet drug action team solution
Brent Primary Care Trust, north west London, has gone live with a new system developed by Graphnet to enable drug action teams (DATs) to meet reporting targets. DATs, across the UK are responsible for drug strategies for adults and they have report to the National Treatment Agency to obtain funding. The new system, developed by […]
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Web catalogue powers up procurement project
A collaborative NHS procurement project in the north-east of England has combined its bargaining power with the new ability to buy non-clinical items through a web-based catalogue. The North East Patches Shared Systems Project, which includes NHS organisations within Northumberland, Tyne & Wear, and North-East Yorkshire, allows requisitioning to take place over a simple web […]
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Chatrooms found to give bad advice to patients
An study from the University of Derby has revealed that people who look for health guidance through chatrooms or messageboards may be receiving poor advice, causing extra difficulty for GPs. Dr Neil Coulson, a reader in health psychology, studied chatrooms and websites dedicated to helping people with high-profile conditions such as HIV, diabetes and cancer, and found […]
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Xansa secures NHS finance and accounting deal
Xansa, the IT services company, has been recommended as the preferred partner for a joint venture to provide finance and accounting services to the NHS in England, it was announced this week. The 50:50 deal with the Department of Health (DH), which will run over 10 years, is expected to start in April 2005 and […]
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Haematology software wins primary care award
Software that automatically works out correct dosages of anti-coagulation drugs for patients has won the prestigious John Perry Prize from the Primary Health Care Specialist Group (PHCSG) at the British Computer Society. The prize, worth £500, was given to the INRstar system, developed by Dr Mark Sullivan and Dr Robert Treharne Jones of Sullivan Cuff […]
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NPfIT: engagement on electronic referrals will wait
National engagement over electronic referrals will only come “when the time is right", namely when the system is fully operational, a spokesperson from the National Programme for IT told a conference in London. Claire Mitchell, group programme director for Booking & Choice at the national programme, told delegates at Clinical Information Systems and Electronic Records and e-Health […]
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