Communicating in a crisis
Christopher Small, Director for Public Sector, Telewest Business, argues that the NHS must have robust networks in place to deal with major incidents.
Feature
Ending the ‘rough ride’ for health informaticians
People who choose to work in health informatics have had a ‘fairly rough ride’ with no obvious career pathways and inappropriate remuneration, according to the chair of the first elected UK Council for Health Informatics Professionals. Speaking at a reception to celebrate the elected UKCHIP’s inaugural meeting, Dr Glyn Hayes, explained the difficulties health informaticians […]
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Devon chooses Consensus for learning management
A learning management system supplied by CS Group has been chosen by five NHS trusts in the South Devon NHS Community to support their learning and development programmes. CS Group will supply the five trusts with its Consensus Learning Management System (LMS), which will initially be used to support the local training and administration requirements of the […]
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CfH approaches 2,000th deployment
Connecting for Health’s (CfH) latest deployment figures indicate that almost 2,000 systems had been deployed by the programme as of the beginning of September. The figure represents an increase of over 800 deployments since the beginning of August, reaching a grand total of 1,864. However, a closer reading of the figures reveals that almost all […]
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West Midland Ambulance Service upgrades network
West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) has implemented a fully managed private network from Telewest Business, which for the first time connects its operational ambulance stations and district headquarters. The new network will underpin the modernisation of WSAS’s communications and also support new e-learning applications to equip paramedics with information to enhance public services. The managed […]
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CfH business plan indicates delivery delay
NHS Connecting for Health has issued its first annual business plan listing the agency’s achievements and setting out a programme of work that remains heavy on infrastructure and light on the rich clinical functionality the service is looking for to help transform services. The plan is published almost three years after the establishment of the […]
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Ambulance services get digital radios
The Department of Health has awarded a contract for a new digital radio and communication system for all NHS ambulance trusts in England, which will provide ambulance service staff with better communications, particularly when responding to critical incidents such as the 7 July London bomb attacks. The new digital radio service will replace the existing […]
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NHS Direct may lack capacity to handle OOH calls
NHS Direct may have insufficient capacity to manage out of hours (OOH) care in the integrated fashion envisaged by the government, researchers have concluded. In 2000, a review of OOH care recommended integrating calls made to general practitioners outside surgery hours with NHS Direct. The idea was that patients’ calls would be routed directly to […]
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Technology key to transformed ambulance services
Electronic patient records and the planned central repository for patient information will be vital components of many the changes needed to transform the ambulance service in England, a newly-published review predicts. The review conducted by national ambulance adviser, Peter Bradley, says that the number of ambulance trusts needs to be reduced by at least 50% […]
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Internet abuse rises among public sector workers
The Audit Commission has published a report into IT abuse in the public sector, revealing that 47% of reported cases of misuse involved accessing inappropriate material over the internet. The report, ‘ICT Fraud and Abuse 2004’, which covers NHS Trusts as well as police and local authorities, said that there was a sharp increase in people […]
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