Official Launch for NHS Broadband in Wales
The NHS took a step towards greater broadband access last week when Wales health minister, Jane Hutt, officially launched the roll-out of a broadband network which will link all the service’s organisations in the principality. Supplied and managed by BT, the service is up and running and delivering improved e-mail and web services. Within a […]
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Health Data Protection Group Formed
The first meeting of the new Health Records and Data Protection Review Group, set up to advise the Government on helping people to gain access to their health records, took place on Friday, 24 May. The group, whose members represent patient groups, health and social care professionals and regulatory bodies, will advise the Government on […]
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European Mobile Health Takes First Steps
Mobile health aims to do nothing less than turn traditional healthcare on its head. As numerous speakers at Mobile Health Europe pointed out, to describe care provided away from a doctor’s office or hospital clinic as "remote care" misses the point entirely if you’re a patient. The promise of mobile healthcare is to enable care […]
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Community Nurses to Expose Poor IT Provision
Trusts that lag behind in providing modern IT for community nurses will be named and shamed by the nurses’ union, the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors’ Association (CPHVA) as part of its Making IT Happen campaign. A survey of local representatives is being carried out to find out how many community nurses are linked up […]
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Is Telemedicine Finally Delivering the Goods?
Telemedicine is working hard to wipe out its reputation for producing interesting projects but not much real-life action – and papers at the Royal Society of Medicine’s TeleMed ’02 conference this week reflected that mission. Titled “From Research to Service Delivery”, the conference’s agenda clearly aimed to convince the sceptics and hard-headed budget holders that […]
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Boxing Day Busiest Ever Day for NHS Direct
NHS Direct, the UK national telephone health advice service, had its busiest ever day on Boxing Bay, as the holiday season took its toll. The top enquiries were for vomiting, fever, coughs and diarrhoea. According to figures reported by the Guardian, the 24-hour nurse-led advice service took more than 24,000 calls on Boxing Day – […]
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IT Needed to Cut Drug Deaths
A new report by the Audit Commission has highlighted the need to invest in IT systems to cut the increasing number of patients who die after being given the wrong drugs in hospital. Approximately 1,200 people died last year in England and Wales as a result of the medication errors often caused by ineffective information […]
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Department of Health awards £325m HR and Payroll Contract
The UK Department of Health (DH) has awarded a £325 million contract — the largest IT contract yet awarded within the NHS — for an integrated HR and payroll system for the NHS in England and Wales to a consortium led by US health IT firm McKesson. The HR and Payroll contract, described as the […]
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NHS Signs Landmark National Software Deal With Microsoft
The NHS has completed a three-year corporate software licensing deal with Microsoft Ltd, which will see all NHS computer users get access to the latest Microsoft software and potentially save the NHS £50m. The new "NHS Enterprise Agreement", which has immediate effect, will dramatically rationalise the NHS’s previously fragmented purchasing of Microsoft products. Senior NHS […]
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