Hospitals to assess satisfaction ‘in real time’
Health secretary Alan Johnson told the Labour Party conference yesterday that he wants to see NHS trusts collecting “immediate feedback” from patients on their experience of care. The Mirror newspaper was briefed that this might mean hospitals giving patients PDAs. However, the Department of Health could only say that trusts might “opt” to use hand-held […]
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Intellect calls for more IT in diabetes care
The trade association Intellect has expressed disappointment that the Department of Health’s latest policy statement on diabetes fails to give a role to telehealth and telecare. The DH issued a five-year update on its National Service Framework for diabetes care last week, and argued that it had made significant strides in identifying people at risk […]
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NHS managers not committed to informatics
Efforts to harness health informatics to improve patient care have been "impeded" by a basic lack of commitment from NHS managers. This is a central message from the British Computer Society’s Health Informatics Forum in its response to the government’s recent Health Informatics Review. The HIF finds much to praise in the report, although it […]
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NHS Direct says it has no 0845 plans
NHS Direct has said it has no plans to switch its premium rate 0845 telephone number to a standard rate 0345 number that has been reserved for its use. Last week BT Wholesale published a briefing note on its website stating that the 0345 4647 number would “eventually replace the NHS Direct number 0845 4647” […]
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Call for information investment in PBC groups
The NHS Alliance is calling for practice-based commissioning groups to be given the money to fund their own information needs. The Alliance, which represents PCTs and GP practices, has claimed that PCTs’ failure to provide GP practices with accurate and meaningful data has been sabotaging PBC. In a new policy document, A Vision for Practice […]
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NICE to overhaul QoF
The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QoF) is to be overhauled to focus on indicators which have the greatest impact on health and are proven to be cost-effective, according to Lord Darzi. The health minister and author of the government’s NHS Next Stage Review told Parliament’s Health Committee that the National Institute for Clinical Effectiveness (NICE) […]
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LISs to LIPs with the Health Informatics Review
The much anticipated Health Informatics Review only comes close to setting a new direction for the national programme. But it has many other ideas to drive informatics in the NHS.
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NHS Choices selects Capita as preferred bidder
Capita has been announced as the preferred bidder to deliver NHS Choices for the next three years.
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Swindells says Darzi 50 per cent about information
Matthew Swindells has said that the NHS Informatics Review sets an unprecedented information challenge.
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NHS informatics review set to stress continuity
As part of the next stage review of the health service will see the publication of the blueprint for NHS informatics, to accompany last week’s ten year blueprint for the health service ‘High Quality Care for All: The NHS Next Stage Review’. The accompanying informatics review matters as the Darzi direction of travel is all […]
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