IT payment offers £4250 for practices in Wales
GP practices in Wales can earn £4250 under a new IT payment scheme worth £2.1 million agreed as part of the renegotiated nGMS contract. The new directed enhanced service (DES) for IM&T will pay the average practice in Wales £4,000 for a data accreditation exercise and a further £250 payment will be available to practices that […]
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Online medical journal access for NHS Wales
Informing Healthcare, the Welsh healthcare IT programme, has announced that it is making another 90 online peer-reviewed journals available through the NHS Wales online library, bringing the total number of publications staff can access to 200. The addition is part of the programme’s Access to Knowledge (A2K) project. The new journals cover diverse topics such […]
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GPASS users doubt future use in national records
Ministerial claims that the troubled GP system GPASS will be central to the development of the national electronic single record in Scotland have been dismissed by the system’s own user group. Andy Kerr, Scottish health minister, told GP newspaper Pulse last week that GPASS would be "an incredibly important part of IT developments in Scotland […]
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NHS 24 cuts numbers of ‘call-backs’
Scotland’s health advice helpline NHS 24 has reduced the percentage of ‘call-backs’ to patients to less than 20% from a high of more than 50%, tackling a key area identified by an independent review of the service last year. The health advice and information service says figures for January show that ‘call backs’ to patients, […]
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Traffic doubles on new NHS24 website
The Scottish health helpline NHS24 has set up a new-look website with health advice and doubled the number of hits compared with its old site immediately. NHS24.com was launched two days before Christmas with new content, including a health encyclopaedia and self-help guide, created by NHS Direct but tailored for Scottish users and the Scottish […]
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Scottish NHS staff miss PCs for Christmas
NHS staff in Lothian has been left without a new home computer for Christmas bought through the Home Computing Initiative after BT suffered supply problems caused by over-subscription to the scheme in Scotland. According to The Scotsman, around 3000 NHS workers across the whole of Scotland had not received their new PCs for Christmas, and some have […]
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AxSys wins major Scottish system contract
AxSys Technologies has been named as the successful bidder in NHSScotland’s national generic clinical system (GCS) procurement. The Clydebank-based company will deliver a national licence for its product, Excelicare, and provide supporting services as part of the GCS contract. The overall aim is to provide NHSScotland with the tools to create a diverse set of local clinical […]
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Scottish pharmacists receive extra IT funding
Pharmacists in Scotland are to receive £500 in the latest round of IT funding to prepare for the launch of their new contract in April 2006. The Scottish Executive Health Department (SEHD) has announced that every pharmacy contractor will receive £500 towards the cost of installing software to run an electronic minor ailment service. It will […]
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Scotland-wide PACS deal goes to Kodak
NHS Scotland has awarded a national contract to Eastman Kodak Company’s Health Group to deliver a picture archiving and communications systems (PACS) and information management solution (IMS) across Scotland. Under the deal, signed on Friday, by 2008 every hospital in Scotland will gain the ability to easily access prior images and reports, regardless of where […]
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Scottish practices indicate interest in systems switch
Almost 20 per cent of practices in Scotland have expressed an interest in switching to a different IT system with the vast majority of those wishing to change currently using the centrally funded system GPASS. GPs in Scotland had until the end of October to express an interest in moving to a new clinical computer […]
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