NHS England to publish IT strategy

NHS England is developing an NHS Technology Strategy and Roadmap, setting a national direction for NHS IT.

NHS England has published its Business Plan for 2013-14 – 2015-16 called ‘Putting Patients First‘, which explains how it will deliver its mandate from the government.

One of the plan’s key targets in relation to IT is to have 95% of trusts using the NHS Number as the prime identifier in clinical correspondence by January 2015.

‘Putting Patients First’ says NHS England will “set the direction for NHS technology and informatics so that commissioners, providers and suppliers can make informed investment decisions.

“In co-production with key strategic partners and in consultation with stakeholders, we will develop and publish an evidence-based NHS Technology Strategy and Roadmap.”

Other developments outlined in the plan include an integrated business intelligence tool, which will “provide the robust information needed for evidence based, insightful decision making for all parts of NHS England."

It will also develop a linked package of shared-decision making aids so that people can make choices in collaboartion with clinicians about their treatment.

The plan says that health and care data is one of England’s greatest public assets and "putting it to work" is key to improving patient outcomes.

To harness this, NHS England is developing the care.data programme, which will provide timely data linked across the different components of the patient journey and the outcomes resulting from treatment.

The programme recently got approval from the General Practice Extraction Service Independent Advisory Group to proceed to extraction.

The plan says that 75% of GP practices will be providing a full extract to care.data by September this year.

Three-quarters of hospital trusts will be providing patient level prescribing data to care.data by December 2015.

The plan also says that mental health trust providers will all complete the mental health minimum data set, and will publish regular information on key indicators in 2013-2014

“Through 2013-14 commissioners must use sanctions if not satisfied over the completeness and quality of a provider’s data on the Secondary Uses Service,” it adds.

‘Putting Patients First’ pledges that all NHS patients will be able to leave feedback in real time on any service by 2015.

“A deeper understanding of how users of NHS services view aspects of the care they receive is essential to make services better,” the plan says.

The Friends and Family Test will be introduced for 100% of acute hospital inpatients and Accident and emergency patients from April 2013 and for women who have used maternity services from October 2013. The aim is that 30% of trusts improve their scores by 2014-15.