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To support the NHS during this period of sustained significant pressure, The NHS has taken action to boost capacity ahead of winter. Recognising the fundamental importance of primary care in underpinning NHS services, a critical part of this plan is to increase capacity outside of acute trusts, which includes the scaling up of additional roles in primary care, increasing the flexibility for primary care networks (PCNs) to do this, and taking further action to support general practice.
To enable this, the NHS are taking several steps over the next few weeks to support the expansion of general practice capacity and reduce both workload and administrative burden. The measures will help general practice focus on access pressures and facilitate system collaboration, working with local providers to manage urgent demand and help address workload challenges.
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Almost three-quarters of medtech companies in the UK and Ireland (74%) struggle to make their data compliant with the interoperability requirements of healthcare IT systems, new research by InterSystems suggests.
Healthcare Services and Solutions that connect, interoperate, and automate across people, processes, systems and data sources.
In-house skills shortages are revealed to be the biggest difficulty with interoperability for more than a third of the 100 medtech companies surveyed (35%). Almost one-in-four respondents (38%) say achieving interoperability cost-effectively is one of the severest barriers to the growth of their business. Nearly half (47%) say frequent changes to data standards cause them significant problems.
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NHS cancer patients will be the first in the world to benefit from chemotherapy delivered by drone as part of a new trial, NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard has announced. The drones, set to make their first flight in the coming weeks, will mean that the lifesaving treatment can be picked up and dropped to patients on the same day.
Announcing the major trial, NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard said the drone deliveries were just the latest “extraordinary” instalment in another year that has showcased NHS innovation and cutting-edge technology. In a first of its kind trial, starting on the Isle of Wight, chemo will be flown directly from the pharmacy at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust to St Mary’s Hospital, where staff will collect it before distributing it to hospital teams and patients.
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The National EBME Expo took place at the Coventry Building Society Arena on the 28th and 29th June 2022, with over 125 international medical equipment companies exhibiting.
The message coming from the conferences was clear – more investment is required in medical equipment if the NHS transformation challenge is to be achieved over the next 5 years.
The government is investing in technological change, but the expert speakers agrees that a more strategically inclusive approach was required.
According to Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, “We are now embarking on a transformative programme of reforms that will make sure the NHS is set up to meet the challenges of 2048, not of 1948, when it was first established, and also to make the vital changes that are so urgently required in social care” The long-term sustainability of health and social care is dependent on having the right digital foundations in place, and so digital transformation must be the linchpin upon which all of these reforms are based.(1)
Read more: More focus is required on Medical Equipment investment and secure connectivity
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The 2022/23 priorities and operational planning guidance has asked NHS Trusts to develop detailed plans to maximise the rollout of virtual wards to deliver care for patients who would otherwise have to be treated in hospital, by enabling earlier supported discharge and providing alternatives to admission. This supporting guidance helps systems to achieve these ambitions, supporting implementation and covers definitions, principles, funding and staffing. Blueprint guidance notes are also available for two virtual ward pathways: acute respiratory infection virtual wards and frailty virtual wards otherwise known as Hospital at Home.
The latest guidance has revealed that NHS England and NHS Improvement is asking all Integrated Care Systems (ICS’s) to extend or introduce the virtual ward model. The document, titled ‘Supporting information for ICS leads: Enablers for success: virtual wards including hospital at home’ , aims to support ICS’s with their strategic and financial decisions on virtual ward planning and implementation. The content is positioned at ICS leadership teams but it is also helpful for provider organisations as well. The guidance includes a two-year transformation programme to support the development of virtual wards operating to standardised clinical models, across every area of England.
Read more: NHS Trusts asked to extend ‘tech-enabled’ virtual wards to improve care by December 2023
