Press Release

Intellect comments on health informatics report

Thursday, July 10 2008

Intellect, the trade association for the UK technology sector, welcomes the health informatics report published today which underlines the vital role that informatics plays in the delivery of health and social care services, both now and in the future.  

However, we believe that if informatics are to be properly implemented in the NHS then its success depends on early engagement with the industry to ensure there is a proper understanding of industry's capability and capacity to deliver any given solution.  

The National Health Service is preparing to take a 'leap forward' in information management and this needs to be supported by an infrastructure, systems and processes that will allow practitioners to deliver improved patient outcomes whilst also protecting patient data. 

The UK technology industry has the ability to provide innovative thinking along with expertise and experience from across different sectors and across the globe.   The Additional Supply Capability and Capacity (ASCC) framework provides a convenient and rapid mechanism through which Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts can obtain additional solutions.

Intellect plays a key role helping industry, stakeholders and policy makers to work together.  Intellect works across the public sector to improve procurement as well as programme and project delivery, so that complex informatics solutions are delivered effectively and efficiently and ultimately contribute to improved citizen outcomes.

Melissa Frewin, Healthcare Programme Manager at Intellect, commented, "We welcome the report's emphasis on information management, which will support Lord Darzi’s vision for 21st century healthcare by offering choice and improving the quality of healthcare driven by local clinical need. 

"We are pleased that the government recognises the importance of developing these technologies for the future and we look forward to engaging with the department and the health service before the publication of the implementation report later this year".

Jeremy Nettle, Chair of Intellect’s Healthcare Council, said, "This report talks about information to support high quality care. Of course this is laudable and patients should expect nothing less, yet we do need to be careful that we do not procure or deliver information solutions in 'silos' or as 'data islands'.

"Over the last five years interoperability has progressed, chiefly due to NHS Connecting for Health's rigour in this area; however information systems must be able to support collaborative clinical care. We must also be aware of the way new technologies such as Web 2.0 are changing our lives.

"These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. These will be the new tools that patients and clinicians will be familiar with and will support high quality care."