Health secretary’s website wins access award
Health secretary Alan Johnson’s website won the top prize for accessibility in the British Computer Society (BCS) MP Website Awards. Johnson, who is also Labour MP for Kingston Upon Hull West and Hessle, won the award for his personal website www.alanjohnson.org, used to communicate news to his constituents. The website is run for […]
News
Government says no plans to devolve CfH power
The government has rejected calls to hand over greater contractual power to trusts and strategic health authorities.
News
IT to be included in hospital ‘deep cleans’
IT and telephone equipment have been included in the Department of Health’s list of items be subjected to a rigorous cleansing, when all trusts are given a ‘deep clean’ to tackle infections such as MRSA and c. difficile. Every hospital in Britain is to undergo a ward-by-ward ‘deep clean’ within the next year to rid […]
News
£100K savings on Plymouth data management
The Plymouth Healthcare Community claims £100,000 worth of capital investment savings by deploying a new data storage solution to ensure full backup of its 18 terabyte data centre. The community estimates that its Falcon IPStor virtualisation platform has reduced labour costs and time by the equivalent of one storage administrator, while the flexibility of the […]
News
NHS failing on offering patients choice
The NHS is failing to offer patients a choice of hospital for their outpatient appointments with barely 10% of primary care trusts achieving national targets on choice. According to the Healthcare Commission’s detailed annual appraisal of how the NHS is performing against national targets, the service is failing to deliver patient choice, including stubbornly low levels […]
News
NHS to invest in new digital alarms for staff
New safety alarm devices for lone workers will be provided to 30,000 NHS workers, as part of the Department of Health’s pledge this week to spend £97m on tackling violence against NHS staff. As well as including an alarm function, the device will help locate the user and link them to a trained individual who […]
News
Granger’s successor remains a mystery
Richard Granger’s successor as chief executive of Connecting for Health and director general of IT at the Department of Health is still unknown, twelve weeks after he announced his resignation in transition from the post. Enquiries from E-Health Insider this week have been unable to clarify when Granger will officially leave CfH, and more intriguingly […]
News
New sites chosen for computerised CBT
The Department of Health has chosen 11 sites to take part in a £2m pathfinder project into cognitive behavioural therapy, which will include computerised therapy for patient suffering from anxiety and depression. The new pilots follow the success of two demonstration sites in Doncaster and Newham, set up last May. The aim of the projects […]
News
Ben Bradshaw becomes minister for NHS IT
The Department of Health has announced that Ben Bradshaw, Labour MP for Exeter, will be the new minister responsible for the National Programme for IT. Bradshaw replaces Lord Hunt, as minister of state for health services. Lord Hunt replaced Lord Warner as the minister responsible for NHS IT and Connecting For Health in January after returning […]
News
CMO flags up issues with computerised radiotherapy
Unsafe transfer of data and a lack of training in new computerised radiotherapy systems have been highlighted as potential hidden dangers by the chief medical officer (CMO), Sir Liam Donaldson. The issue is one of many featured in the CMO’s annual report ‘06 which also looks at hospital-based infections, organ transplants, intrapartum-related deaths and women […]
News