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:

Clinical dashboards to be developed:

NHS Connecting for Health has awarded a contract to System C to design, develop and pilot Clinical Intelligence Systems, or clinical ‘dashboards’. The company, whose products are built on Microsoft technologies, will create systems that let managers, doctors and other staff see at a glance how their services are performing and test them at a number of sites in England over the next nine months. The dashboards were a key recommendation of Lord Darzi’s Next Stage Review of the NHS.

• Read more on the E-Health Insider website

A&E maximum waits delivered:

The government says A&E departments in England met its operational standard for 98 per cent of patients to be dealt with inside four hours of arrival last year. Health minister Ben Bradshaw hailed the achievement, which was delivered even as the number of patients attending A&E continued to increase. The government has doubled spending on A&E services over the past ten years, while introducing alternatives such as walk in centres.

• Read more on the Department of Health website:

Mixed views of care on the wards:

The annual National Inpatient Survey, conducted by the Care Quality Commission, has found that patients have noticed some improvements on NHS wards over the past decade, although mixed-sex accommodation, food and communication remain problems. The survey found patients had noticed improvements in cleanliness and medical staff washing their hands – although a quarter reported that doctors and nurses still failed to wash their hands before touching them.

• Read more on the Independent newspaper’s website

Action on violence against women:

The government has promised to double its funding for the 24-hour National Domestic Violence helpline and has set up a taskforce to help NHS staff spot signs of domestic abuse and make sure victims get the help they need. The helpline will get £1 million from the government this year. The taskforce will be led by one of the NHS’ former national clinical directors, Professor Sir George Alberti, who described violence against women and girls as a neglected public health issue.

• Read the press release on the government’s official News Distribution Services website

Personal budgets move a step closer:

The Department of Health has announced 68 provisional pilot projects for personal health budgets, which are designed to give patients some control over how the money available for their care is spent. The budgets were announced in Lord Darzi’s Next Stage Review of the NHS and are one of the government’s policies for “personalising” the NHS. The pilots, which cover areas ranging from mental health to long term care, will start this summer.

• Read the press release on the NDS website: