Scots MPs criticise slow progress on IT

The Scottish Parliament’s Health and Sport Committee has criticised the Scottish Government for the slow roll-out of its clinical portal and limited progress on telehealth.

In a two part report, ‘Clinical portal and telehealth development in NHS Scotland,’ the committee praises several Scottish health boards for developing clinical portal projects to enable greater access to patient information.

However, it says that: “The committee is disappointed that, given the differing states of readiness of various portal systems, clear timescales have yet to be established for the development of portal technology across Scotland.”

It also calls for the Clinical Change Leadership Group and the Clinical Portal Programme Board to work closely with the Scottish Academic and Research Community to design “a nationwide portal infrastructure.”

The report states: “The aim of the project should be the development of a single portal system across all health boards, rather than a range of differing systems across the NHS.

"The committee believes that this must be a central element in Scottish government’s forthcoming clinical portal strategy.” It adds that it is “concerned about the development of multiple systems.”

The report also raises concerns similar to those raised in England this week in relation to the roll out of the Summary Care Record about the extent of patient engagement in healthcare IT.

It says: “Patient engagement should be central to the development of such projects, so as to ensure the key development period does not remain a dialogue between professionals.”

The report calls for patients to play a central role in the decision making process in order to ensure confidence in IT projects.

It recommends that the Scottish Government includes patient representatives on the Clinical Portal Programme Board, as well as nursing and midwifery and other allied professionals.

The report also raises concerns about security and the traceability of access to the electronic portal, saying there is a culture in NHS Scotland of sharing IT usernames and passwords.

It recommends that the portal development strategy has: “The clear aim of delivering the technological means whereby a patient can audit and track how and where their medical information is accessed within the health service.”

According to the report, the clinical portal will take around £6m in revenue to move forward over the next year, with the total cost of the portal development across Scotland estimated at £10-15m.

In addition, the report says that the government should consider moving to open source methods rather than relying on one commercial supplier.

In the second section of the report, the committee expresses frustration at the continuing failure of telehealth pilot projects.

The report says that as “starting point” the government should make Scotland the first country to establish national telehealth services within the next four years.

To address this, it says that the forthcoming telehealth strategy needs to set out how telehealth will be delivered in relation to government’s broadband policy, identify cost savings from telehealth and find ways to encourage health boards to use telehealth systems.

It says targets may be necessary, as efforts so far have been “largely unsuccessful.”

Link: Full report.