New health and social care secretary Matt Hancock spent a night shadowing staff from the London Ambulance Service and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and came away shocked by the state of the IT. He promised that “interoperable data standards” will be introduced to make sure systems can work with each other, and staff don’t have to use pen and paper to cover the gaps. US digital doctor Professor Robert Wachter told the Health Service Journal that the NHS needs a new, ten-year vision for technology, that includes AI. However, digitalhealth.net reported that NHS England is planning to distribute £412 million of IT funding to sustainability and transformation plan partnerships. They will be expected to work with providers to decide how to spend their share of the cash; on pre-defined national priorities, within six weeks. Also this week: as Parliament returns and the health and IT conference season gets under way, attention is starting to turn to the ten year plan for the NHS. Lyn Whitfield asks what we know about the plan so far, and looks at the challenge of aligning technology programmes and funds with it.
Healthcare Roundup 31 August 2018
