CfH stripped of key roles and reorganised
In a major shake-up of health service IT, key leadership roles are to be moved directly to the Department of Health.
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DH and London move on shared services
NHS chief executive David Nicholson is encouraging the health service to make greater use of shared services as London’s primary care trusts prepare to set up their own commissioning support organisation. Nicholson wrote to trust chief executives last week to encourage them to use NHS Shared Business Services or other shared services for back-office functions. […]
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NHS severe computer faults double
NHS Connecting for Health, the health service’s IT agency, has revealed that the number of severe faults in NHS computer systems has doubled over the past three years. Last year nationwide NHS computer systems suffered 820 severity-one or critical faults with national applications, provided by National Application Service Providers (NASPs) the majority relating to the […]
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Clinical Solutions gets a Mentor
Clinical Solutions has signed a three year deal with primary care IT supplier EMIS to integrate EMIS’s Mentor drug database into its decision support software. The deal means the Mentor Drug Database Module will be integrated into Clinical Solutions’ IntefleCS Face to Face software, providing access for clinicians working in urgent care centres, walk-in centres […]
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Choose and Book makes variable impact
GPs and consultants are still struggling to make Choose and Book work as intended, according to new research carried out by the British Medical Association. Problems with system reliability, slot availability and the time involved in making or reviewing an appointment are all highlighted in the association’s latest report, Choose and Book – learning lessons […]
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Probe into lost appointment bookings at Barts
More than 400 patients have had to wait more than 13 weeks, after details of 2,000 telephone bookings were left unprocesed on a spreadsheet.
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This is the year to come
Review calls for shake-up of pathology
The Department of Health should put in place IT connectivity for NHS pathology services as a matter of priority, a two-year review has concluded. The review of pathology services, chaired by Lord Carter of Coles, calls for DH electronic order communications pilots for primary care to be rolled out as soon as possible and suggests […]
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Journalists warned of possible ECS breach
Seven BBC journalists have been told that information held on their Emergency Care Summary in Scotland may have been inappropriately accessed by a doctor. NHS Fife wrote to the seven after discovering that a doctor working for it may have accessed the records. The health board notified Fife Police and the clinician involved has now […]
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Lib Dems demand tougher data protection
The Liberal Democrats are calling on the Department of Health to publish minimum standards for the protection of data on mobile devices after compiling research on more than 150 cases of data loss in the NHS. The party used the Freedom of Information Act to ask strategic health authorities about ‘serious untoward incidents’ involving data […]
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