Summary
A £260 million technology fund has been introduced, to make the NHS safer.
“The Secretary of State for Health, Professor Sir Bruce Keogh and [the Chief Nursing Officer] have launched a £260 million Technology Fund to enable doctors and nurses to access better information about patients and provide safer care. The fund will be available to NHS providers, supporting the rapid progression from paper-based systems for patient notes and prescriptions to integrated electronic care records and the development of e-prescribing and e-referral systems”.
Read more: Chief Nursing Officer bulletin: June 2013. NHS England.
Reference
Chief Nursing Officer bulletin. London: NHS England, June 17th 2013.
Instructions on how NHS foundation trusts and NHS trusts can apply for the Safer Hospitals, Safer Wards Technology Fund are available. Guidance explains how local care economies can flow vital data across organisational boundaries more effectively, and thereby improve the quality and effectiveness of care. The idea is to replace outdated paper-based systems for patient notes with integrated digital care records (IDCRs).
Reference
Safer hospitals, safer wards: achieving an integrated digital care record. Leeds: NHS England, July 1st 2013.
[A brief reference to this item features in Dementia and Elderly Care: the Latest Evidence Newsletter (RWNHST), Volume 3 Issue 9, August 2013].
NHS England welcomes the £250m extension to the “Safer Hospital, Safer Wards” Technology Fund, available to NHS Trusts to support the adoption of electronic integrated digital care records.
Reference
Additional £250 million for the Safer Hospitals, Safer Wards Technology Fund. London: NHS England, September 4th 2013.
£1bn for A&Es and NHS Staff to Access Medical Records
The government is investing £1 billion in technology to ease pressure on A&E departments and improve patient care. This funding supports the government’s commitment to allowing patients to book GP appointments and order repeat prescriptions online by March 2015. It should enable people to access their GP records online.
Reference
£1 billion to help A&Es and NHS staff access medical records in hi-tech hospital revolution. London: Department of Health and NHS England, September 4th 2013.
Possibly of related interest:
Reference
Addenbrooke’s Hospital paperless system goes live. London: BBC Cambridge / BBC Health News, October 27th 2014.
Unexpected outcomes, initially:
Reference
Addenbrooke’s Hospital consultants concerned over online records. London: BBC Cambridge / BBC Health News, December 10th 2014.
Clinical Digital Maturity Index: NHS England’s Tool to Improve Patient Safety (NHS England and EHI Intelligence)
NHS England and EHI Intelligence have launched the Clinical Digital Maturity Index (CDMI). This benchmarking tool for NHS hospitals relates to the use of IT to improve patient safety and outcomes, reduce bureaucracy and achieve greater efficiency. The CDMI is designed to help NHS trusts assess their “digital capability”, and rate their performance on criteria such as e-prescribing and e-referral.
Reference
NHS England launches Clinical Digital Maturity Index to improve patient safety. London: NHS England, November 6th 2013.
EHI Intelligence and NHS England’s Clinical Digital Maturity Index boasts to be the definitive national table ranking the 160 English acute NHS trusts on their clinical information systems.
“CDMI maps 27 different categories of clinical systems in use at acute trusts. It comprises nine levels with clinical systems placed in each level”.
Reference
NHS trusts ranked on their clinical IT. [Online]: E-Health Insider, February 17th 2014.
The table:
Reference
Updated CDMI ranking table. [Online]: E-Health Insider, February 17th 2014.
Reducing Bureaucracy
The CDMI was mentioned briefly in the following NHS Confederation report which reviews the bureaucratic burdens on providers of NHS care from national bodies. This review is one of the many lines of investigation arising in response to Robert Francis QC’s report into failings in care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. This particular report looks not just into addressing the volume of data to be handled, but also reducing the effort required to gather it and increasing the value that can be extracted from it.
Reference
Challenging bureaucracy. London: NHS Confederation, November 2013.
