Lifting the burden

Announcements of the names of the chair and chief executive for the new Information Centre for Health and Social Care are expected in the next two weeks.

The new leaders are due to be in place for the launch of the Information Centre on 1 April 2005 which has the concise mission to “relieve the frontline of the burden”.

What will this mean for a service wary of central promises? ‘The burden’ in question is the heavy demand on trusts to produce information for a wide – and growing – variety of purposes. Regulation, governance and ministerial enquiries account for some but not all of the pressure.

Acting chief executive, Bob Allen (above right), told E-Health Insider that the exact way of working towards the new centre’s purpose will be a matter for debate, but in his interim role he has been opening up communication between the frontline and the centre.

"The ambition is to be the first point of contact [for information seekers] – the first port of call – that, of itself, will relieve the pressure on the frontline," he explained.

Allen, who is on an interim assignment from his role as chief executive of Airedale NHS Trust, Yorkshire, thinks the focus will then be on slimming down the information requirements so that trusts are only asked for information once.

An experienced change manager, Allen’s primary task in the centre’s ‘shadow’ period has been communication.  Internally, this has meant communicating with staff around England in the Department of Health and the NHS Information Authority whose jobs are affected by the formation of the new centre.

Externally, the task has been to open up lines of communication with the numerous regulators, NHS organisations and central government departments who will be served by the new centre.

He believes that the emphasis on communication with the frontline will create “quick wins” for the incoming leaders.  “Maybe we’ve been too centrally focused,” he says, observing that there will always be demands information from ministers and others at the centre.

Speaking to IT directors and managers and others around the country, Allen believes that the trusts will be looking for relief from ‘the burden’ in several common areas.  First, they will be looking for co-ordination of the central requirements for reporting on local NHS activity.

Second, they will seek co-ordination of the work that is covered by the Secondary Uses Service (SUS). This is one of the less publicised areas of the National Programme for IT which will provide a public health information service using pseudonomised information gathered through the NHS Care Records Service. The SUS is charged with providing timely, patient-based data and information for purposes other than direct clinical care.

Third, NHS organisations need help in dealing with ad hoc requests from the centre, such as questions from ministers. Fourth, they want benchmarking information for the NHS.  “Currently, if the NHS wants benchmarking information it has to pay for it – or find out about it from the Healthcare Commission after the event,” says Allen.

He predicts there will be no big announcement on 1 April.  "What we want to do is reflect on our successes six months later," he says.

Health and Social Care chief talks about year ahead