Direction promised on NHS information strategy

12 Feb 2008

New clear direction on NHS IT and information strategy has been promised ‘within weeks’ by one of the leaders of the Department of Health’s informatics review.

A report in Health Service Journal, quotes review manager Tom Denwood saying current ‘chaos’ on NHS IT strategy will be resolved within weeks, with a major shake-up at the DH to establish “unified governance” and clear decision making.

The interim findings attributed to Denwood strongly indicate the review is focusing on how to pragmatically ensure the delivery of business information requirements required by the NHS now, and in support of policy priorities such as 18-week waits and practice based commissioning.

The informatics review is being led by Matthew Swindells, interim DH director general for information and programme integration.

The imminent DH IT strategy shake-up is expected to try to integrate strategic management of health and social care information, establish clear resonsibility for IT strategy and information within the DH and link policy into business information requirements.

Speaking at a conference run by CHKS, Denwood quoted as saying the review had concluded there appeared to be nobody who currently “owned the big picture” on information. “There is no one taking a strategic view over healthcare, social care and mental health.”

Denwood who was previously head of the Choose and Book programme for NHS Connecting for Health, said NHS IT leads had told the review there is currently “a complete absence of a function that translates policy into business requirements.”

E-Health Insider understands that Denwood was delivering a presentation originally due to to have been presented by Swindells.

The HSJ report adds that Denwood said a key interim finding of the review, which is due in late March, is the mistmatch between NHS activities and the amount of data available.

Highlighting the lack of information available on social care, he was quoted as saying: “Potentially there is a lot of information available where there might be little expenditure, but very little information where there is a lot of expenditure.”

Jon Hoeksma

Related article

Granger era ends as DG leaves CfH

Link

HSJ (subscription needed)

Reader's Comments

Sleepwalking into yet more chaos ...

13 Feb 08 07:29

I can't see much here about clinical information systems, though supporting business information requirements appears prominent. Are we to assume that the promise of Information for Health (1998) is finally dead and buried?

Even more concerning is the idea of attempting yet more integration (e.g. health and social care): haven't they learned anything during the last 5 years? The NHS is simply not yet ready for this joining-up.

IMHO there is now a case for rapid decentralisation perhaps with the emphasis on interim delivery of specialist systems to build uniform IT maturity across the NHS. In 10 years time, there might then be some chance of successfully deploying integrated multi-disciplinary systems.

I suspect - however - that Mr Granger's legacy contracts might get in the way of such a feasible approach.

just what the doctor ordered....

13 Feb 08 08:50

.....another set of consultants coming in to tell the NHS what its business requirements are.

And how fortunate that we have Choose and Book to use as a model of translating policy into requirements, because that was such a success

the idea of Direction is where it all went wrong

14 Feb 08 22:17

Denwood's "Potentially there is a lot of information available where there might be little expenditure" - that would be previous NHS local IT initiatives, that would.

"but very little information where there is a lot of expenditure" - Oh, NPfIT I think.

Didnt it all go wrong when the centre thought they could procure far better than the experts in the service, and micro-manage from their Ivory towers ?

As summarised by Tony Collins in a book in 1999 as I recall (and in complexity theory too).

Social Care convergence is not more of the same

jean@hcjean.demon.co.uk

14 Feb 08 23:02

Research in the 2002-3 period from Warwick University highlighted many differences of approach, culture, data recording and use of technologies between the health domain and social care practitioners. It will therefore not be an extended roll-out to bring the practitioners together for shared care and shared records - the management of change process will be very complex and must be planned in earleir rather than later. Not without much preparation will the systems even synergistically co-exist .... the warnings are writ large, lets treat them with respect