Microsoft NHS Resource Centre: news round up
Welcome to the Microsoft NHS Resource Centre’s seven day round up of the latest news from the NHS and the healthcare IT sector:
Cameron puts records at heart of health reforms
Conservative leader David Cameron has said that he wants to see patients holding their own records. In a major speech on the health reforms that his party would carry out if it came to power, Mr Cameron said it would consult on the best way to give patients control over their records.
One option would be to store them online, using the NHS’ own HealthSpace or a commercial alternative such as Microsoft’s Health Vault. Mr Cameron also repeated earlier promises to rename the Department of Health the Department of Public Health, to give hospitals and GPs more freedom and to extend telemedicine initiatives.
• Read David Cameron’s speech on the Conservative Party website.
New toolkit to promote IT innovation
NHS Connecting for Health, the NHS’ IT agency, is to launch a new ‘toolkit’ to encourage IT departments, small firms and major corporations to come up with new applications for the NHS that will work with its existing IT systems. The toolkit, which consists of standards and guidance, is being trialed at a couple of NHS sites and will be launched formally next spring.
• Read more on the E-Health Insider website.
Trust loses cancer patient details on USB sticks
Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Trust has been criticised by the Information Commissioner after staff lost three unencrypted USB sticks containing sensitive information about cancer patients this summer. Trusts have been told for two years to make sure information on portable devices is encrypted so it cannot be read easily if they are lost or stolen. The trust blamed “lack of awareness” of the Data Protection Act and its own policies and said it would step up staff training.
• Read more on the E-Health Insider website.
New organ donor campaign launched
NHS Blood and Transplant has launched an online game as part of its latest campaign to persuade more people to sign the organ donor register. The game is inspired by the film The Wizard of Oz and allows people to build their own tin man and make him dance by giving him a heart. Television adverts are also being run as part of the campaign. Three people die every day waiting for transplants.
• Read more about the campaign on the Guardian Media website.
• Go to the ‘Save the Tin Man’ website, backed by NHS Blood and Transplant.
Childhood obesity ‘levelling off’
The Department of Health has published a report that suggests the rapid rise in childhood obesity may be levelling off. A team from Oxford University has revised down earlier estimates of how many children may be obese by 2020.
On a visit to Portsmouth, which is one of the Change4Life campaign’s nine ‘healthy towns’, public health minister Gillian Merron said the news was welcome but the number of obese children and adults in England is still too high. The new study estimates that roughly a third of children will be obese in 2020, not 50 per cent.
• Read more on the BBC news website.
• Or read the Department of Health’s official press release.