Reader’s Feedback – Summary No 1

Though we always say we welcome feedback, E-health Insider has, so far, not published comments from subscribers. Let’s start to put that right this week with some recent comments.

Inevitably the Budget and the Wanless Review report published just before it provoked interest. A LIS programme manager e-mailed us in sheer frustration…

“Having listened to Mr Millburn’s fine speech, I found myself laughing hollowly. Reading in your bulletin what Richard Gibbs said about ring fencing IM&T money made me cry with frustration.

"Does no-one know what’s actually happening down here on the ground? £55m was ring fenced for IM&T connectivity, and there is an assumption at the centre that this still exists. Due to massive pressures on the poor front line services, all of ours has been ‘re-routed’ to meet the access targets.

"Chief execs get fired for not meeting 15 months waiting time. No-one gets fired if we do not deliver IM&T, yet the latter could so support the former! There is no point in Alan Milburn banging on about electronic booking, when half the country can’t even get IM&T at the coalface."

Other readers involved in delivering local IT strategy have contacted us by phone with similar frustrations and concerns at the loss of promised IT funds in the new financial year. Will Derek Wanless’s report be enough to throw a real ringfence round funding? Do we need some new form of financial barbed wire? Let us know what you think.

Another correspondent asked us to give our sources for the query we raised about the apparent shift of the target for introducing electronic records from 2005 to 2008. This was the reply we sent…

”In Sir John Pattison’s speech to the HC2002 he said the service had been given two years nine months – i.e. until 2005 – to put electronic records in place (along with booked admissions, e-prescribing and a robust infrastructure). A link to the speech is on the right hand column of the E-Health Media home page.

”Then last week Delivering the NHS Plan, the key implementation document from the DH published after the Budget, said (Par 3.8) that there would be electronic patient records in all PCTs and trusts by 2008. This document is on the DH’s homepage.”

We’re trying to clarify what precisely this new target means and will let you know as soon as we can get an answer.

Several subscribers have asked for back issues of E-Health Insider which we have been happy to supply. As a more satisfactory solution, however, we are now planning to provide an online archive of back issues of E-Health Insider. We’ll let you now once this available.

Finally, we were amused to receive a note from a reader who fancied having one of those implantable ID microchips we reported on in Issue 17 (12 April). If anyone else is interested we can recommend an excellent vet who "chipped" the E-Health Media felines recently. Keep the comments rolling.

We are considering setting up a community forum and would welcome your comments on the sort of facility you’d find most useful. We have looked at something like a Yahoo group, but we find the amount of e-mail they generate can be irritating and wonder whether you would too. The alternative would be to establish a new community section on the site, allowing messages to be posted and providing facilities for online debates, to promote dialogue and the exchange of ideas around key health IT issues — but we’d like to know whether this is something you’d find useful.

Please let us have your ideas and comments – mailto:linda@e-health-media.com or mailto:jon@e-health-media.com