Stigma? What stigma?
Jim Thomson, chief executive of the Centre for Mental Health, strongly argues for greater regulations on online pharmacies and the sale of prescription-only drugs over the web.
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Illegal online pharmacies ‘threat to public health’
A paper published by think-tank the Centre for Reform has warned of the dangers of unregulated online pharmacies and is urging the government to take seriously the problem of prescription drugs being ordered with no medical checks on the patient. The paper, entitled ‘Online Pharmacy: Patient Choice or Patient Peril?’, a collation of speeches made […]
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Revised NCRS proposals allow for multiple summaries
The concept of a single summary record on the spine is to be replaced by a system that will allow several separate summaries to co-exist, according to revamped proposals on the content of the NHS Care Records Service (NCRS). Patients will also be able to opt out of having a summary care record of any […]
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Child health and social care data ‘must fit together’
The proposed national child index that will be used to record and share information about the statutory services being used by individual children must be made to fit with the national programme for IT, the government has said. The government response to a consultation on information sharing databases – also known as child indexes – carried […]
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Red rose rising
EHI Primary Care talks to Lancashire Care NHS Trust, the first mental health trust in England to receive a PAS system from Connecting for Health.
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National record content outlined by CfH
Information on mental health, sexual health and infections should be excluded from the initial summary record on the spine, Connecting for Health (CfH) clinical leads have recommended. The proposal is included in a major discussion document and marks a significant change in emphasis on plans for the NHS Care Record Service (NCRS). It follows continued and […]
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Fingerprint health record access wins £3,000 prize
A group of GP practices, which enable patients to access their records using biometrics and view health information and book appointments online in kiosks, has won a £3,000 award for its use of IT. The Imaginative Health Cluster, which covers almost 38,000 patients in Derbyshire, was installed at the beginning of the year and features […]
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Patients need reminders for online depression self-help
Websites that only offer self-help for people suffering from depression can be effective as those that also offer external clinical guidance, as long as patients are reminded to use them, according to a new study published this week. Researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research studied a group of 250 people with self-diagnosed […]
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Solving the maze
Gerry Yantis and Nikolai Segora from Capgemini argue for greater integration between IT programmes in primary care.
Feature
Minister launches patient ‘guarantee’ on records
The government has published a series of commitments in the form of a guarantee on how nationally held electronic health records will be used. Health minister Lord Warner said that the new rules will ensure patients keep control over access to their health records in the delayed national database of patient records known as the […]
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