The secretary of state for health and social care is expected to today announce £200 million of funding to create additional global digital exemplars, including the first community trust GDEs.
Speaking later today at NHS Expo in Manchester, Matt Hancock will set out his plans to make the NHS an ecosystem for the best technology available.
He is expected to say: “Now is the moment to put the failures of the past behind us, and set our sights on the NHS being the most cutting-edge system in the world for the use of technology to improve our health, make our lives easier, and make money go further, harnessing the amazing explosion of innovation that the connection of billions of minds through digital technology has brought to this world.”
Digital Health News revealed last month that further GDE waves were being actively planned. Hancock will say that the £200m will be used to create new acute, mental health and ambulance trusts GDEs as well as the first community GDEs.
There are currently 16 acute global digital exemplars, which have 17 fast followers; seven mental health GDEs, and three ambulance GDEs.
NHS App to be piloted
Ahead of its national rollout in December, Hancock is also expected to announce that the NHS App will be piloted in five areas across England.
From October, patients in Liverpool, Hastings, Bristol, Staffordshire and South Worcestershire will be able to download a beta version of the app.
They will be sent a text message from their GP practice inviting them to download the app, which allows access to a range of services.
This includes:
- Booking GP appointments
- Ordering repeat prescriptions
- Viewing medical record
- Accessing 111 online for urgent medical queries
- Setting data sharing preferences
- Recording organ donation preferences
- Setting end of life care preferences
Goldacre to chair new advisory board
Hancock is also expected to use his speech to announce the creation of a HealthTech Advisory Board chaired by Ben Goldacre.
The board, which will report directly to Hancock, is intended to highlight where change needs to happen, where best practice isn’t being followed, and be an ideas hub for how to transform the NHS to improve patient outcomes, patient experience, and to make the lives of NHS staff easier.
Goldacre – a doctor, academic and writer – has become famous for exposing misuse of science and statistics by journalists, politicians and drug companies. He is also director of the Evidence-Based Medicine DataLab at the University of Oxford.
“Grapple with this agenda”
It is anticipated the secretary of state will use his speech to urge local healthcare leaders to fully embrace digital transformation. “I know there are many brilliant people trying to do the right thing and I will back you,” he is expected to say. “And I say to NHS leaders: I expect every board, be they provider, CCG or STP, to grapple with this agenda and back the people doing the transformation.
“I am determined to make this happen – for the sake of the millions of you who work in health and social care. For the 50 million people in this country who rely on you in their hour of need.
“To help in our mission to guarantee the NHS for the long term, to make the NHS the best it can be.
“So let us work together to put the best technology on the planet to work.”
7 September 2018 @ 18:50
It’s marketing (under PECR) so requires explicit consent.
7 September 2018 @ 18:52
Sorry – your GP texting you about third party products is marketing (under PECR) so requires explicit consent.
7 September 2018 @ 13:52
Dear Mr Hancock,
There is a simple way in which you could, at a stroke, immensely improve both my health outcomes and my patient experience. All you need to do is (genuinely, without dirty tricks involving “sufficiently anonymised” data) allow me to comprehensively opt-out of all of your schemes involving data sharing. My life and my healthcare would immediately be transformed – for the better. I am perfectly capable of sharing any information I need to share, with the right people and coercion seriously damages my health. What you regard as the health of NHS IT systems, and the health of NHS patients are two quite different things. Please try to understand this before you do very serious damage to the latter.
Yours etc,
Bertl
7 September 2018 @ 13:25
I think it is a pity that I have to withhold my telephone number and my e-mail address from my GP in order to protect myself from such NHS garbage (and to keep my personal details out of the hands of the NHS wherever possible).
7 September 2018 @ 13:37
Try doing that with your bank, insurers or private healthcare providers. Best of luck.
Seriously Bertl, while some of us are working hard to balance consent and respect for privacy with the needs of the NHS in planning, designing and delivering safe, cost-effective care, and the R&D community to wean us off leeches and fountain pens, I’m not convinced your ‘sky is falling’ mindset helps anybody.
Just a thought.
7 September 2018 @ 14:19
Thank you for your thought. i do not need to do that with my bank, insurers or private healthcare providers, because they are not getting it seriously wrong. The NHS is getting it very seriously wrong.
Just a thought.
6 September 2018 @ 09:50
why didn’t my GP tell me about this App?
6 September 2018 @ 13:13
Probably because it won’t be launched until December in pilot areas 🙂
6 September 2018 @ 14:51
was a rhetorical question that i should have posted in reply to “Some Guy”
6 September 2018 @ 07:29
Is sending a load of texts from GPs for the purposes of advertising a third party product (the NHS App) a breach of the GP’s GDPR obligations?
I hope I don’t get a text as if they give it out to advertise this, then what else will they give it out for? I didn’t agree to my GP sending me messages from “approved third parties”.
Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
6 September 2018 @ 09:14
wouldn’t you like your interaction with GP services to be available on an app? how else would you expect to find out about such innovations if your GP didn’t tell you about them? is it really advertising if they are not trying to sell you anything?