National PACS steering group disbanded

A shake-up in national governance arrangements for PACS across England has been signalled by Connecting for Health (CfH).

News of the review came after E-Health Insider asked for information about the disbandment of the current National Design Steering Group for PACS amid concerns that that a national perspective would be lost on unresolved issues, notably data sharing.

A CfH Spokesperson said: “The National Design Steering Group has played a valuable role in supporting the national PACS programme to date. Now, with the completion of the PACS deployments carried out as part of the National Programme for IT, the PACS programme is facing a new set of challenges and we need to make sure that we have appropriate governance arrangements in place to meet these while supporting the drive for ‘local ownership’.

“As part of this review it’s envisaged that the National Design Steering Group will be superseded by a new steering group with a wider brief covering technical strands such as provision of guidance for trusts and SHAs on interim sharing arrangements for images and reports, a strategic national image and sharing mechanism and facilities to enable automated booking of diagnostic imaging.”

Concerns have been expressed to EHI that the disbandment of the group following the completion of deployments misses the point about the PACS programme’s overall vision of a system in which medical images can be shared nationally, across institutions and NHS regions. Unless that vision is achieved, the NHS faces the prospect of being left with stand-alone systems purchased above market prices.

CfH emphasises, however, that national data sharing will continue to be a key objective.

The agency’s statement added: “Successful delivery of this objective will not just involve design, it will also require stakeholder engagement, managing requirements, contractual processes and ensuring appropriate delivery mechanisms and plans. The new steering group will help guide this work both from a technical and clinical perspective.

“There are some topics that have been covered by the National Design Steering Group, such as integration with independent sector and introduction of other clinical specialities into PACS, which will be picked up by the relevant programme governance streams for these areas.”

CfH says it will confirm more details in about two months when discussions have taken place with strategic health authorities and other stakeholders.

“It is important to emphasise that such changes are part of a wider review of the PACS governance model involving all forums and groups associated with the national PACS programme,” said the agency.

Linda Davidson