22nd and 23rd September 2010

Glasgow Science Centre www.glasgowsciencecentre.org

Giving you advance notice that our conference this year will be the biggest and brightest yet! We are staging this event at the prestigious Glasgow Science Centre where you not only have great views over the Clyde and City but complementary entrance to the fun science exhibits. The futuristic building mirrors BCS Health Scotland’s innovative and forward looking approach..

We have three themes this year which are quality, innovation, and efficiency.

Keynote speakers include:

Matthew Swindells, former CIO Connecting for Health, and chair BCS Health

Rikard Lovstrom from Sweden to talk about their National Patient Overview project and eHealth strategy

Dorothy Whittick from Canada talking about the Canadian Health Infoway national developments and a Wellness project in Alberta

Brian Robson from Scotland on the Quality theme and his experiences from the USA.

PRESENTATIONS INVITED – Do you have something interesting to present in one of our themes ?

To get in touch please use the contact form

Exhibitions confirmed include:

Exhibitors are staging a social networking evening after the first day events so look out for a fun time as well as stimulating and thought provoking discussions.

If you would like to Exhibit please contact Neil Campbell using the contact form

NHS Scotland eHealth Awards!

An exciting new departure will be the ‘NHS Scotland eHealth Awards!’.  These awards are given to winning NHS teams for three categories sponsored by BCS and Scottish Government, look out for an announcement in the next few weeks.

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Read the full Health and Sport Committee Report

Report from weekly news at IHM Scotland

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GPs are concerned that some patients who use NHS 24 are being sent unnecessarily to hospitals

Helen Puttick

Published on 7 Mar 2010

Concern that nurses who have had no face-to-face dealings with patients for years are working for the helpline NHS 24 are being raised by Scottish doctors.

GPs are expected to condemn the use of nurses with no recent experience of meeting patients to assess people over the telephone, at a major medical conference later this week.

Dr Georgina Brown, who has flagged-up the issue to the British Medical Association Scotland, said she worked alongside NHS 24 nurses at the Scottish Flu Response Centre. She felt they did not have the confidence to advise patients to look after themselves at home because they had not dealt with the sick, in person, for some time.

She said nurses would send people to hospitals or out-of-hours centres when they did not need medical treatment.

Dr Brown, a GP from Springburn in Glasgow, said: “They are an extremely committed group of nursing staff but a lot of them had not seen a patient in years and I felt it was inappropriate.

“If they spent even half their time in practice and the other half doing NHS 24 that would be more appropriate. Telephone triage is very difficult.”

Dr Brown said she was far more likely to give patients self care advice while her NHS 24 colleagues were more likely to refer them to another part of the health service. She said: “It is because they are following this strict algorithm [of computerised questions] and because they are not used to seeing patients on a daily basis.

“I feel over a period of time, if you do not see patients regularly you lose that level of confidence and clinical skills.”

NHS 24 nurses have a minimum of two years post-graduate experience and the majority are higher-grade nurses who have worked for at least three years outside the helpline, preferably with NHS community or hospital services.

Dr George Crooks, medical director for the helpline, said the call centre nurses were given opportunities to rotate into other clinical areas and many did hold positions in other parts of the health service, such as A&E departments. He added that a review had shown it did not make any significant difference to a patient’s outcome if they spoke to an NHS 24 nurse or GP.

Click the link for more on GPs, nurses and NHS 24

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Pictured at today’s launch were minister Keith Brown, Sian Armour, Dr Jane Thompson (both

Ubiquigent) and Sir Philip Cohen. A new company, backed by American money and tasked with the development of drugs to fight cancer and rheumatoid arthritis, was launched in Dundee today (writes Bruce Robbins). Ubiquigent Ltd., which will benefit from a £3 million, three-year cash investment from its US parent company Stemgent Inc., will seek to benefit from the world-class research being done at the Scottish Institute for Cell Signalling at Dundee University.The new venture has already created three jobs and this is likely to increase to five this year and possibly 10 next year.

Scottish Government skills and lifelong learning minister Keith Brown, who was taken on a tour of the SCILLS labs today, described the announcement as an “excellent investment” for the city’s — and Scotland’s — life sciences sector.

He said, “Our pioneering research and technology is globally renowned. We have a clear academic lead in this field.

“The Scottish Government is fully committed to growing this sector and maximising the talent.

“This is why we met our manifesto commitment and invested £10 million to establish a life sciences institute in Dundee, the SCILLS unit, and provided £3 million to support the recruitment of up to 100 new apprentices within the life sciences sector last year.

“The world-class talent, skills and technology within the SCILLS unit at the University of Dundee is undoubtedly a huge factor in this move.”

Mr Brown added it would have been good had a Scottish private equity company been willing to provide the £3 million funding that is coming from America but it was a case of changing the investment culture in this country.

SCILLS is directed by Sir Philip Cohen and concentrates on an emerging area of cell signalling called protein ubiquitylation, which is said to have great potential for the development of drugs to treat cancer, inflammatory diseases and autoimmune diseases.

More on Cancer drug firm in Dundee

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The hand-held device tested in the trial can be used at home

A new hand-held device that delivers a magnetic pulse to the back of the head could become an alternative to drug treatment for people with migraines.

A trial found that 40% of patients were pain free two hours after using the device.

Research showed there were no serious side-effects and patients found the device easy to use at home.

However, doctors say more research is needed to work out the timing of the doses.

Experts from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York carried out the trial to assess the safety and effectiveness of the device.

Previous trials have only involved large, expensive devices which have to be used in a clinic.

Electrical events

The hand-held device emits a single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (sTMS), thought to disrupt the electrical events in the brain which cause the preliminary symptoms of migraines with aura.

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NHS waiting lists fairer, says study

The report said patients are getting a fairer deal under the new system

Changes to NHS waiting lists have made the system fairer for patients according to the public sector watchdog Audit Scotland.

In a report it said an overhaul of the system two years ago had resulted in most patients waiting less than the 15 week target.

It concluded the new arrangements had improved the way the health service managed waiting lists.

But it criticised the way the NHS communicated with patients.

Auditor General for Scotland Robert Black said: “Waiting times are very important to patients and the new arrangements have improved the way the NHS manages waiting lists.

“The NHS now needs to build on this to make sure that the new arrangements work well for everyone.”

Click the link to read more on NHS waiting lists

New way of managing waiting lists is fairer for patients

Posted: 4 March 2010

The National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland has made big changes in how it manages waiting lists since 2008 and these have made the system fairer for patients. The NHS has done well to implement these complex new arrangements.

An Audit Scotland report, Managing NHS waiting lists – A review of new arrangements, looks at how the NHS has applied the new arrangements, known as New Ways, and how this has affected patients. New Ways aims to manage patients more consistently and bring an end to patients being put on what were sometimes referred to as ‘hidden waiting lists’, where they would lose their guarantee of being treated within a certain period of time.

The report finds that the NHS has broadly achieved these aims, and the changes have resulted in a system that is fairer for patients. But the health service now needs to do more to make the new arrangements work as effectively as possible and to help patients understand New Ways and its implications.

Read more about the Audit Scotland report on waiting lists

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The NHS IT project is years behind schedule

Industry insiders and the Conservative Party allege the deals, which would be in place by the end of March, would “tie the hands” of whoever forms the next government.

But Health Minister Mike O’Brien said it was “nonsense” to expect the government to suspend negotiations just because of the impending election.

Last December Chancellor Alistair Darling said NHS spending which was not front line, such as parts of the IT project, should be shelved in the coming round of spending cuts.

Digital case notes

The ambitious scheme, which aimed to make patient records digitally available to every surgery and hospital in England, is years behind time.

Originally planned to be completed in 2006, 2015 is the latest estimate for full implementation.

Tory policy would seek to halt the two main contracts and dismantle its central infrastructure.

The Liberal Democrats would like to scrap the programme.

Shadow health minister Stephen O’Brien told File on 4 that Whitehall is trying to reset these contracts within the next four weeks, which could make it harder for whoever forms the next administration to cancel them.

“We are urging the government not to go down that route because we wouldn’t want any further contractual arrangements to be committed,” he said.

He added: “We have heard that there is a process, which is intended to be completed by the end of March, which would have the effect of potentially tying a future government’s hands more rigidly than they would already be under the current contracts.”

Other sources in the IT industry also claim Whitehall is trying to stitch a quick deal.

follow the link to read more about pre-election handling of NHS IT system contract

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The consultation poses 20 key questions for those who will be affected in order to help shape the process.

Revalidation is about providing further assurance that the 218,000 doctors with a licence to practise medicine in the UK are up to date and fit to practise. The proposals set out a system which is designed to be flexible and relevant to doctors’ day-to-day practice and builds on systems that already exist, or should exist, to support high quality care.

The statement makes clear that revalidation is on its way but there will be no big bang approach to its introduction – instead there will be a phased implementation following extensive piloting to ensure that it is proportionate and practicable.

Revalidation will not involve a point-in-time assessment of a doctor’s knowledge and skills. It will be based on a continuing evaluation of their practice in the context of their everyday working environment. Revalidation will focus on affirming good practice for the vast majority of doctors but will depend on good clinical governance arrangements that should also detect poor practice.

The proposals in the consultation have been developed by the GMC in close collaboration with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the four health departments, the NHS and other healthcare employers, the medical profession, and input from patients and patient groups.

The consultation has four main themes:

• How revalidation will work. This covers the approach to revalidation, including the process by which a final recommendation will be made to the GMC by a designated ‘Responsible Officer’, likely to be the medical director in a doctor’s employing organisation. More specific issues, such as how revalidation will work for doctors in non-mainstream roles, will also be considered.
• What doctors and employers will need to do. The consultation will consider aspects of appraisal and assessment, the specialty standards developed by the Medical Royal Colleges and Faculties, the role of continuing professional development in revalidation and the use of questionnaires to test the views of patients and colleagues.
• How patients will be involved. This section explains how patients will provide feedback to doctors on their performance and how this will be included in the revalidation process.
• How and when revalidation will be introduced. This section sets out the plans for implementation across the four parts of the UK.

The Chair of the General Medical Council, Professor Peter Rubin, said:

“As doctors, we are among the most trusted of all professionals. We have to ensure that this trust in doctors continues to be justified. For the past 150 years, the GMC has sought to provide assurance through the register of medical practitioners. It remains one of the most robust and well used registers anywhere in the world. But it has always been a historical record of exams and qualifications earned, not of competence or performance. As such, it offers a limited assurance about whether each of us is maintaining the high standards expected of us throughout our careers.

“Revalidation will plug this gap. In one sense, what is being proposed is no more than what should be happening in every doctor’s practice – it is based on local systems of annual appraisal over five years and affirms what has already been demonstrated through that appraisal process.

“We want to hear from doctors, employers and patients across the UK in response to the consultation – we need to know the views of all of those affected to ensure that revalidation works, and is proportionate and flexible to meet the needs of a busy and diverse workforce.”

Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, said:

“Revalidation is starting to take shape and all doctors who hold a licence to practise will be required to demonstrate, on a regular basis, that they are up to date and fit to practise. This consultation is an opportunity for all doctors to have their say in how the process will work – I would encourage as many as possible to take part.

“For the vast majority of doctors in this country, revalidation will confirm what they already do: keep their skills and knowledge up to date and demonstrate high levels of professionalism every day of their working lives. This new system will also help us to give appropriate support to those few professionals who are struggling to keep pace.”

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“Aruba’s 802.11n solutions deliver assured access to latency-sensitive communications services, regardless of where the clinician is working. That makes possible a wide range of new opportunities to improve patient care and reduce staff workload.”

“Unlike general data access services, point-of-care voice and video communications are latency-sensitive and require special handling,” said Manav Khurana, Aruba’s Head of Industry Marketing. “Our high-speed 802.11n wireless LANs are application-aware, and automatically adapt themselves to deliver the bandwidth, airtime, and quality-of-service required by unified communication applications at the point-of-care. The resulting wire-like performance enables Motion’s platforms to take clinical productivity to a new level.”

The Motion C5 is a hospital-grade slate tablet PC and the healthcare industry’s first Mobile Clinical Assistant,MCA. The tool improves clinical productivity, optimizes electronic medical record (EMR) utilization, and enhances clinician efficiency by enabling the use of technology directly at the point of care. The flexible MCW-200 workstation improves communication and collaboration involving complex work-flows and information-rich content, delivers up to 15 hours of battery life, and is available with integrated voice and video support. Aruba’s Adaptive Radio Management (ARM) technology improves the wireless performance of both devices by automatically optimizing Wi-Fi band selection, load balancing, and power levels in real-time, an important function in a healthcare facility’s dynamically changing RF environment.

“Providing unified communications and automated patient data management at the point-of-care requires that the Wi-Fi network follow in lock-step as clinicians with C5 or MCW-200 devices roam through a hospital campus or satellite clinic,” said Mike Stinson, Motion Computing’s Vice President of Marketing. “Aruba’s 802.11n solutions deliver assured access to latency-sensitive communications services, regardless of where the clinician is working. That makes possible a wide range of new opportunities to improve patient care and reduce staff workload.”

Click link to read more on this article about Mobile Clinical Assistants

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