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The Conservative party has comissioned an independent review of NHS IT. The review, chaired by Dr Gyln Hayes, may be used to inform the policy of any future Conservative government.

Below is the full text of the letter inviting submissions from all intrested parties including E-Health Insider readers.

From Dr Glyn Hayes,

I am writing to you as chair of an independent review group, commissioned by and reporting to Stephen O'Brien MP, the Conservative Shadow Health Minister, in order to inform future policy for the use of information technology in the NHS, health and social care in England.


The Review Group's remit is to:

1. Establish how clinical, public, and management needs can most effectively be met by information technology


2. In the light of the developments and progress of the last few years, establish a vision for IT in the NHS, health and social care


3. Set out a strategy for achieving that vision including a workforce strategy


4. Advise on action for the current Government to take


5. Advise on the policy options to be considered for implementation by an incoming Conservative Government



The group is convinced of the benefits that can be gained though the use of health informatics, and welcomes the progress that is being made in this area. In particular we are aware of the benefits to be gained from patient centred records. We believe that such records, appropriately designed, properly implemented, and made available to those providing health and, where feasible, social care would enable the improvement and efficient management of patient and service user outcomes.

We are currently collecting written evidence to support our inquiry from individuals and organisations involved in health and social care. We would value your input to this review, and have constructed a series of questions around which to structure written evidence. We would be very grateful if you were able to prepare a written submission, which addresses any or all of these questions (included below this email), and send it to us by 30th September 2008. Submissions should be sent by email to evidence@healthitpolicyreview.info.

The evidence we are looking for should be precise and up to date. Anecdotal evidence should be supported, where possible, by relevant data. If the evidence refers to or makes use of information that has already been published the original source should be clearly referenced.

We will assume the right to publish any evidence that is provided to us as part of our report. Contributions will be attributed, acknowledged or treated anonymously according to your wishes, please indicate this on your submission.

Please feel free to forward a copy of this message to any individuals or organisations who you feel could make a valuable contribution to our work.

Sincerely,

Dr Glyn M Hayes M.B.Ch.B., D.R.C.O.G. FBCS. CITP
Family Physician
Past Chair, British Computer Society, Health Informatics Forum
President, UK Council for Health Informatics Professionals www.ukchip.org
President, BCS Primary Health Care Specialist Group www.phcsg.net

Members of the Review Group
Gail Beer, Independent Consultant; Iain Carpenter, MD FRCP, Clinical Lead on Record Standards, Health Informatics Unit, Royal College of Physicians; Ian Shepherd, MRPharmS, FBCS, CITP; Professor John Williams, Director, Health Informatics Unit, Royal College of Physicians

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Questions
We would like your views on any or all of the following topics:

Strategy
What are the strategic objectives that can be supported through use of IT in health and social care?
What information is required to support these strategic objectives?

The capture and use of clinical data to support individual patient management
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using person-centred data captured in patient-focused records?
How should patient and service user outcomes best be measured?
What are the benefits and disbenefits of patient and service user recorded outcome measures?
Who should perform the necessary data capture, how should it be done, and how can accuracy be ensured?
What are the key issues with regard to data quality?
How important will it be to introduce professionally-agreed clinical standards for the data captured in patient records?

The approach to system architecture
What is right balance between centralised and decentralised systems?
Should systems be designed and built to support specific diseases, interventions, professional disciplines or patients, regardless of their clinical problems?
What future technical developments could affect the use of IT in health and social care?
What role might other informatics models play (Google Health, MS Vault, open source etc)?
What role, responsibilities and structure might a national centralised IT support body have?
How can the system procurement process be optimised to maximise and sustain benefits?

Management of the NHS, health and social care
How can the delivery of health and social care be better supported by IT?
How should data to support the management of health and social care be derived?
How could IT support commissioning in health and social care?

Leadership and Human Resources
How can professional leadership be best developed and used to encourage the effective use of health and social care informatics and to support patient and service user care?
How can staff commitment be maximised at the local level?
How should the change process be managed?
What education and training will health and social care staff need?
How are the workforce in health and social care affected by the increased use of IT?

Information Governance
What are the relevant issues and tradeoffs with regard to security, confidentiality and data governance?
Who should have primary responsibility for the content of a shared record?

Patients
How are those who are disadvantaged, have a disability or are not computer literate affected by the increased use of IT in the delivery of health and social care?

Evaluation
How should new and existing systems be evaluated?

Health and Social Care
How could information be beneficially shared between health and social care?