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:

Success criteria for NPfIT:

The Department of Health’s chief information officer, Christine Connelly, has published the criteria that will be used to decide whether the two ‘strategic’ electronic patient record systems that are being developed for the NHS are making progress. This spring, Ms Connelly said she wanted to see “significant progress” with Cerner’s Millennium and iSOFT’s Lorenzo by the end of November.

She said she wanted to see Millennium installed at another London trust and Lorenzo installed at an NHS organisation in the North, Midlands and East of England. Kingston is expected to go live with Millennium shortly and NHS Bury has just gone live with Lorenzo. Ministers and DH officials are likely to take until next year to decide on the next steps for the National Programme for IT in the NHS.

• Read more on the E-Health Insider website.

Think tank finds problems with ‘choice’:

The King’s Fund think-tank has published a report showing that only half of the patients surveyed at eight NHS trusts and two independent sector treatment centres remembered being given a choice of where to go for treatment and that just 5 per cent of them looked at quality information on NHS Choices and other websites. The Fund says more needs to be done if choice is to drive quality in the health service.

• Read the Choice at the Point of Referral report on the King’s Fund website.

DH publishes information quality mark:

The Department of Health has launched its Information Standard accreditation scheme. Health information providers will be able to have their processes approved by the scheme, which is being run by Capita, and then display the Information Standard logo. Ministers hope the scheme will help the public to identify trustworthy sources of information, particularly on the internet, and that this will encourage people to take more control of their health and treatment.

• Read more about the scheme on the DH website.

Trusts told to avoid mass redundancies in crunch:

Sian Thomas, director of NHS Employers, has warned trusts not to resort to mass redundancies as the credit crunch starts to impact on the health service. Ms Thomas, who leads the part of the NHS Confederation that handles workforce issues, said redundancies were a “blunt instrument” and NHS managers should be looking to reduce waste and to innovate instead. Her views were expressed at NHS Employers’ annual conference and were immediately supported by unions.

• Read more on the BBC website.

BMA flags concerns about access to medical education:

The British Medical Association has raised concerns about the government’s higher education policies, arguing that measures to encourage social mobility will fail because they don’t take account of the high cost of some degrees, including medical degrees. The government wants to give students more information about the content of degrees and their job prospects at the end of them, so they can make better choices. But the BMA says it should be giving them more financial support.

• Read the press release on the BMA website.