Health secretary Jeremy Hunt is to establish a new academy to train NHS staff in digital skills alongside 12 new ‘global exemplars’ to spread digital best practice.
The 12 exemplars will receive funding of up to £10m and will be expected to deliver pioneering approaches to digital services, while helping others in the NHS learn from their experience.
In addition to investment in technology and infrastructure, the funding will be used to improve training for staff and will also encourage a new generation of chief clinical information officers to champion and drive forward advances in digital technology.
On top of that, further funding will be available for another 20 trusts to become national exemplars, receiving an intensive programme of support from the new NHS digital academy, and up to £5m each, to improve how digital technology is used across their organisation.
“Bob Wachter’s excellent review made it clear that digitisation is as much about people as it is technology, and that this is a real opportunity to improve patient care for the long term,” said Hunt.
He continued: “We want to fast track existing digital excellence, as well as nurture new skills and expertise that we will need to deliver a new breed of digitised services.
“This means on the one hand giving pioneering NHS organisations the financial backing to unleash their full potential, while also making sure that we can build a digitally-confident workforce across the whole NHS.”
Digital plans include the ability to register with a GP, access healthcare records and get medical advice via a PC, tablet or smartphone, all in one place, which the Department of Health claims will be possible from next year.
Other digital plans include the development of NHS-approved health apps to guide patient choice, with NHS England launching a library of NHS-assessed apps, as well as advising on other wearable devices. The NHS Choices website will be relaunched as NHS.UK, with a wider range of online patient services. And Hunt also promised “instant access” to personal health records online that, he claims, was inspired by the ‘blue button’ app in the US.
Finally, Hunt promised more information available online about the performance of health services, including how various NHS trusts, hospitals and services fare in terms of dementia, diabetes and learning disability services, as well as making information gleaned from inspections more widely available.
[Source:-Computing]
