Thought NHS Digital's wind-down meant it would stop writing cheques? Silly you. It's gone on an IT buying spree It may be winding down as a government unit, but NHS Digital has not stopped its tech spending, signing up suppliers for around £37m in work for the coming years. NHS Digital has been the main national body responsible for delivering IT strategy, while NHSX, formed in 2019, was intended to "lead digital transformation in the …
Agree: a computer isn't going to cure someone. Medicines, surgery and other professional care will.
However, IT is an essential instrument in helping administrate all of the above: appointment bookings, patient self-service such as prescription ordering, analytics for resource planning. All to get the best value from efficiencies.
As for these spending rounds, I would think these would be applicable under the new organisation. If a need for them was identified, I would want to think that need would still be the case after the reorg.
Given that the first electronic computer was invented in 1945, and the NHS was created in 1948, your assertion cannot possibly be true.
/pedant
(But I would agree that a bit less spent in the back room and a lot more spent at the cutting edge* would improve things for patients considerably)
*pun intended
I might have excused her without the absolutely and only one of either needs or should. As the quote stands, however, it seems that her focus is in the administering rather than the medicine. Admittedly administration is her role but St Edward's Hospital looms rather large.
Even worse, lurking in the background is the suspicion that "digital" isn't about administration but about data fetishism or maybe about bypassing those medics with on-line self-service diagnosis.
The break-up of the old Regional Health Authorities into the "wild west" management of the NHS has got a lot to answer for. Granted that the old model had its problems of one sort or another, but we did not have stupid issues where a GP cannot get their patient's results because the hospital is in a different commissioning group despite it being the closest hospital to the surgery.
Today we have the freedom to purchase just about any IT solution we care to, despite that it doesn't integrate with anything else or share a common coding structure. There are at least 4 medical records coding systems in use and there is no one-to-one data mapping between them. It's just good money being poured down the drain.
I have noticed in many many areas that some countries do things better than the UK. However the idea of adopting working solutions from another country seems to be an impossibilty.
Unless of course it's from the US and provides lots of loot to interested parties . And it is unlikely to be the best process available.
I live in France. The health service runs very well and my carte vitale ties all my medical records together and used at the pharmacy and the dentist.
A friend who for three years had been seeking a NHS solution to a pain in his leg had it sorted out in two working days here after visiting a nurse in a tiny village who arranged an immediate appointment with a specialist. Another friend had a whistling heart valve identified on a first visit.
Seven minutes a patient for GP's - here it is 30 minutes and I book them online choosing time and date. Never been more than 4 days hence.
There are a lot of issues where the answer could well be better "in the cloud"
I'm suspicious where the cloud seems to be the object and then they try to find what they can put into it.
Just because something is the latest thing that doesn't make it automatically the best thing.
It's actually a string of buzz words of the kind that gets written to apply for or justify getting big chunks of dosh. It serves to reassure the funders that something very modern and cutting edge is being done to justify the money. It's Bafflegab but with an up-to-date shell.
The government and its leaders of dept do not understand IT
They are IT illiterate
They should leave it to IT people to get the NHS house in order
How many IT systems do you really need ?
It is scary how procurement is handled in government dept
I listened to R4 and they discussed the shipping industry and the gentleman speaking hit the nail in the head
No government could handle the complexity, it takes a family run / owned company that pivot quickly to run big organisations
Government involvement always ends up as fubar
I know a lot of people who do good work for the NHS IT and it is not their choice to shove it in the cloud, they would prefer it on premise under their control.
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