No cuts, but low growth in budget
Chancellor Alastair Darling has told the Commons that the government does not plan to “cut” its way out of recession while delivering a budget that promises low spending growth and big demands for efficiency savings from the public sector.
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Treasury targets £2.3 billion annual IT savings
The Treasury’s Operational Efficiency Programme has recommended £7.2 billion of annual efficiency savings could be achieved on government IT and back-office operations.
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Behind the scenes of an EPR deployment: go live
Sarah Bruce catches up with Benenden Hospital’s deployment of an Oasis electronic patient record system.
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Database mooted for healthcare professionals
The Department of Health is to investigate whether a national database should be set up to hold information on the fitness to practice of all healthcare professionals in the UK. The database would hold information on concerns about the performance, conduct and health of healthcare professionals and will be considered as part of a scoping […]
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NHS Camden rapped by ICO
The Information Commissioner’s Office has taken enforcement action against NHS Camden for breaching the Data Protection Act. The ICO has served the primary care trust with an enforcement notice for failing to dispose of a number of computers properly. Redundant, unencrypted computers holding the names, addresses and medical diagnoses of 2,500 individuals were left beside […]
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CfH terminates Fujitsu helpdesk contract
NHS Connecting for Health has terminated the service desk contract it had with Fujitsu because of performance problems. The First Line Service Support contract with Fujitsu Services Ltd was terminated last week. A CfH spokesperson said the service desk would be transferred in house and supported from the agency’s Exeter office until a permanent provider […]
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Planning for pandemic flu
Clinical Solutions is helping to lay the foundations for coping with an outbreak of pandemic flu. Sarah Bruce reports.
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Cerner director is Obama’s health czar
US president Barack Obama has announced a former director of Cerner Corporation as director of the White House Office for Health Reform. Nancy-Ann DeParle resigned from Cerner’s eight-member board last week to run the newly created office, which will help to co-ordinate the president’s health reform agenda with Congress. She joined Cerner in May 2001. […]
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BridgeForward targets primary care
BridgeForward Software has launched a version of its ClearSpan integration server for GPs and primary care. Physician Integrator has been unveiled ahead of the annual HIMMS technology conference in Chicago at the start of next month. It has been designed to integrate a number of US systems, including the personal health record systems launched by […]
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BCS and ICO join Coroners protest
The British Computer Society and the Information Commissioner’s Office have joined the growing swell of concern about the data sharing provisions of the Coroners and Justice Bill. The BCS says it is concerned that the Bill, which is now making its way through Parliament, “runs counter to the intentions and provisions of the Data Protection […]
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