BMA asks for clarity on care record issues
Doctors at the British Medical Association’s Annual Representative Meeting at Llandudno have demanded that the NHS Care Records System should not be fully implemented until issues over accuracy, consent and data protection are ironed out. The motion, proposed by Dr Mary Hawking from the South Bedfordshire Division, asked that “before total dependence on joint electronic patient […]
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ASSIST attacks GP boycott of electronic records
The chairman of the Association for ICT Professionals in Health and Social Care (ASSIST) has condemned GPs for voting not to co-operate with the Care Records System to be implemented by the National Programme for IT (NPfIT). Andrew Haw said: “It is a shame that, instead of putting barriers in the way of progress, the GPs could […]
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Does Dr Robot usher in new era of metal medics?
From automated call-centre systems to car assembly factories, it seems that wherever you look, a robot is waiting to take a human’s job. Now, in Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, a robot does the rounds instead of a doctor. Charmingly, with its beige frontage, retro TV screen and pointy antennae, Dr Robot (pictured) wouldn’t look completely […]
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Doctors to vote on national patient record system consent
Doctors attending next week’s British Medical Association Local Medical Committee conference are to vote on whether patients’ records should be automatically loaded onto the NHS national data spine of records, even if they have not given their consent for their records to be shared. Concerns about consent are at the centre of a series of […]
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Scottish GPs say GPASS is failing doctors
GPs in Scotland have warned the Scottish Executive that the official Scotland-wide IT system for general practice, GPASS, is failing doctors. The warning came when Scottish doctors recently debated and passed a motion at their annual conference which claimed that GPASS (the General Practice Administration System), a system for managing general practice, is "continuing to fail […]
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Leaked report criticises NPfIT implementation
A leaked report by the National Programme for IT’s former chief clinical adviser has exposed fault lines at the highest levels of the leadership of the national programme and serious disagreements about the way the programme is being implemented and its lack of engagement with clinicians. According to a report in today’s Financial Times, in […]
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Open Source: IT + GP Contract = Heady Cocktail
Roy Lilley, independent health policy analyst and author of “The New GP Contract – How to Make the Most of It!”, considers the cocktail created by mixing the new contract with 21st century IT. Will it leave us all shaken and stirred? Of itself, the NHS IT strategy is no great shakes. Overdue, yes, will […]
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UK Doctors Still ‘Out of Office’ to Patients Online
Email may be the most powerful new communications tool since the telephone. But despite its clear potential in health, the BMA remains sceptical and few British doctors have yet embraced email communications with patients. Stephen Pincock reports on why most doctors remain ‘out of office’ online. Ask the British Medical Association about its view on […]
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Open Source: PCTs Must Continue to Offer Choice of Systems
In the new slot for opinion and comment Dr Nilesh Jain of Torex Health takes up the question of GPs retaining choice over their IT now that PCTs pay for the systems. The new General Medical Services contract will lead to a revolutionary change in primary care computing. Effective IT is needed to underpin the […]
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Poor IT Placing Patients at Risk Junior Doctors Warn
Improved communications systems that reflect the radically changed working practices in hospitals are vital to guarantee patient safety, a new report by the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee concludes. The report, ‘Making IT work for Junior Doctors’, produced to identify problems and solutions to better inform and influence the development of the National Programme for IT […]
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