Browse by Tags

Department of Health believes three million people could benefit from assistive technologies including telehealth and telecare The Department of Health has said that over the next five years it will work with industry, the NHS, social care and professional organisations so that people with long term illness can benefit from assistive technologies such as telehealth and telecare. This further commitment to telehealth and telecare follows the visit by Paul Burstow, the care minister, to Cornwall to see the technologies in use. Burstow said: "The trials of telehealth and telecare have shown how...

Department of Health says trial shows telehealth can provide significant benefits for patients and providers Telehealth technologies can reduce mortality, hospital admissions, the number of bed days spent in hospital and the time spent in A&E, according to the initial findings of a study by the Department of Health (DH). Early indications have shown that, if used properly telehealth – a term for electronic sensors or equipment that monitors vital health signs remotely in a patient's home, or while on the move – can deliver a 15% reduction in A&E visits and, say the DH, a 45% reduction...

IT industry assocation to work with department on information sharing, standards and procurement The Department of Health Informatics Directorate (DHID) has teamed up with IT industry association Intellect to produce a plan for the development of an IT market in the NHS. It is the first step following the annoucement in September of a partnership between the two aimed at increasing confidence in the use of IT in patient care. The plan includes three subject workstreams, the teams for which are to be set up by February 2012. One is on information sharing and governance, which will attempt to identify...

One in eight breaches reported by health service organisations resulted in staff dismissal Figures released to the privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch show that 806 separate incidents involving patient medical records being compromised took place at 152 NHS trusts between July 2008 and July 2011. The group, which obtained data from the majority of NHS organisations in the UK, found that breaches included 23 incidents of patient information being posted on social networking sites by staff, 129 separate instances of NHS employees looking up details of colleagues and family members and 57 incidents...

Former health secretary says health and social care has use new technology to eliminate waste Stephen Dorrell, chair of the health select committee and former health secretary, has called for the NHS to make better use of IT and management information to eliminate inefficiencies. Speaking at the National Children and Adult Services Conference, he said that "great opportunities" offered by new technology are "so far sadly largely unrealised" in both health and social care. "We all know the caricature of the GP surgery where there is a practice nurse, a community health nurse...

Matthew Swindells, the chair of the British Computer Society's health sector group, says that information will be key to success of NHS commissioners Matthew Swindells, chair of British Computer Society (BCS) Health, has said that the changes in the health and social care bill will leave the NHS with a greater dependency on information. "We are seeing the separation between the Department of Health and a commissioning function," he told a BCS conference on Informatics in transition. "The requirements within the bill create a more information-dependent NHS that we have ever had...

It is a 'conundrum' that data security breaches continue to occur in the health service, according to a senior colleague of the information commissioner NHS staff should be more aware of data security risks as patient confidentiality "is at the heart of what they do", Jonathan Bamford, head of strategic liaison at the Information Commissioner's Office has said. Speaking at an event on healthcare efficiency, he said that he was confounded by the disconnect between staff awareness on the subject and the number of breaches that occur in the health service. "The conundrum...

The Major Projects Authority has urged the Department of Health to persist, at least for a while, with two key features of the National Programme for IT A team from the Cabinet Office has recommended that the Department of Health (DH) gives more time to two elements of England's NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) dealing with the provision of key information systems. The Major Projects Authority (MPA), set up last year to scrutinise expensive projects throughout central government, has said the Additional Supply Capability and Capacity (ASCC) should be retained for the south of England,...