First and foremost, this is an observation, not a complaint about the
NHS. Long story short, last Friday, my GP arranged for me to attend
hospital fairly urgently, and the visit turned into an overnight stay.
Home now, and doing well. My GP and the NHS probably saved my life, but
that is another story.

Talking to GP, he asked me to call in at surgery for my notes, to hand
to doctor on arrival at hospital, 45 miles away. When I arrived, I had
to give my medical life story, and again at each new ward/doctor. When
leaving, another set of notes were given to me, to hand to my GP this
week.

What is going on at the NHS? Surely this should all be electronic in
this day and age? Same health authority, yet it seems that notes taken
in local surgery cannot be accessed by local hospital, and even notes
taken in one hospital ward cannot be accessed by another ward in the
same hospital. I would expect that, if I had an accident 500 miles from
home, whichever hospital I attended would have immediate access to my
notes going back to birth. Apparently not. OK, perhaps not back to
1952, but at least as far back as the general introduction of computers.
Say 30 years.

The thought of all these people in every ward, department and surgery in
the NHS employed to duplicate notes that are already available is
terrifying. I realise that the NHS computer system costs hit the
headlines every now and again, but surely the sharing of information was
solved by every other large company years ago? The NHS is larger, of
course, but we're only talking scale.

--
Graeme

"News" wrote in message
...

First and foremost, this is an observation, not a complaint about the NHS. Long story
short, last Friday, my GP arranged for me to attend hospital fairly urgently, and the
visit turned into an overnight stay. Home now, and doing well. My GP and the NHS
probably saved my life, but that is another story.

Talking to GP, he asked me to call in at surgery for my notes, to hand to doctor on
arrival at hospital, 45 miles away. When I arrived, I had to give my medical life
story, and again at each new ward/doctor. When leaving, another set of notes were
given to me, to hand to my GP this week.

What is going on at the NHS? Surely this should all be electronic in this day and age?
Same health authority, yet it seems that notes taken in local surgery cannot be
accessed by local hospital, and even notes taken in one hospital ward cannot be
accessed by another ward in the same hospital. I would expect that, if I had an
accident 500 miles from home, whichever hospital I attended would have immediate access
to my notes going back to birth. Apparently not. OK, perhaps not back to 1952, but at
least as far back as the general introduction of computers. Say 30 years.

The thought of all these people in every ward, department and surgery in the NHS
employed to duplicate notes that are already available is terrifying. I realise that
the NHS computer system costs hit the headlines every now and again, but surely the
sharing of information was solved by every other large company years ago? The NHS is
larger, of course, but we're only talking scale.

--
Graeme


First up the idea of computerising patient records onto centralised
databases has a long history. It was a man called Jim Clark who turned
Marc Andreeson's Mosaic into Netscape Navigator the first truly commercial
and widely used browser; His next big project was a centralised
patient databases using health insurance and medicaid etc
records. It was a costly failure; it was bought by Microsoft in
the end; and the name lives on in some website or other proffering
medical advice.
Second. If your bank IT screws up people might not be able to get
to their money for a day or two.
If NHS patient records IT screw up people may die; potentially
hundreds of them. It wouldn't necessarily be one Airbus crashing
through faulty software, which could always be denied but potentially
a succession of them.
Basically the integrity of the software, and thus the data, might
depend on the abilities of hundreds of "caring" NHS staff with
very little aptitude or affection for IT. Whether any of these factors
were reponsible for the failure of Clarks project, and the impossibility
of insuring it against failure, and resultant claims I'm not sure


michael adams

....

On 11/04/2016 09:27, News wrote:
The thought of all these people in every ward, department and surgery in
the NHS employed to duplicate notes that are already available is
terrifying. I realise that the NHS computer system costs hit the
headlines every now and again, but surely the sharing of information was
solved by every other large company years ago? The NHS is larger, of
course, but we're only talking scale.

My experiences are similar. Less than two years ago, I was seen by a
doctor at hospital A who decided that I needed a minor operation that he
would carry out himself at hospital B where he is normally based. But
the computer systems at the two hospitals were totally incompatible and
not connected, so the essential bits of information about me were
*faxed* from one hospital to another, to be manually keyed in again.
But of course a lot of the detail was missed, so I had to be interviewed
several times and give, yet several times over, the name of my GP, my
date of birth, etc. After the operation, I was seen by the same doctor
at hospital A for a check-up: again the information was transferred from
B to A on paper or by fax, and he made notes on paper so they could be
faxed back to him at hospital B.

The problems are well-known, and there have been several attempts to
solve this in a top-down grandiose manner, but these projects have all
failed spectacularly with a waste of public money running into the billions.


--
Clive Page

In article ,
News wrote:

First and foremost, this is an observation, not a complaint about the
NHS. Long story short, last Friday, my GP arranged for me to attend
hospital fairly urgently, and the visit turned into an overnight stay.
Home now, and doing well. My GP and the NHS probably saved my life, but
that is another story.

Talking to GP, he asked me to call in at surgery for my notes, to hand
to doctor on arrival at hospital, 45 miles away. When I arrived, I had
to give my medical life story, and again at each new ward/doctor. When
leaving, another set of notes were given to me, to hand to my GP this
week.

What is going on at the NHS? Surely this should all be electronic in
this day and age? Same health authority, yet it seems that notes taken
in local surgery cannot be accessed by local hospital, and even notes
taken in one hospital ward cannot be accessed by another ward in the
same hospital. I would expect that, if I had an accident 500 miles from
home, whichever hospital I attended would have immediate access to my
notes going back to birth. Apparently not. OK, perhaps not back to
1952, but at least as far back as the general introduction of computers.
Say 30 years.

The thought of all these people in every ward, department and surgery in
the NHS employed to duplicate notes that are already available is
terrifying. I realise that the NHS computer system costs hit the
headlines every now and again, but surely the sharing of information was
solved by every other large company years ago? The NHS is larger, of
course, but we're only talking scale.

No, we're not. We are considering a multiplicity of trusts and medical
practices each with their own system and each with their own finances. Not
everybody necessarily uses a Microsoft based system, and even if they did,
there will be many different software packages in use.

Sometimes it does link up, my daughter who lives in Gloucestershire, had to
visit our local (Surrey) A&E with our grandson. His Gloucestershire
hospital notes were available on line.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

In message , charles
writes
In article ,
News wrote:

The NHS is larger, of
course, but we're only talking scale.

No, we're not. We are considering a multiplicity of trusts and medical
practices each with their own system and each with their own finances. Not
everybody necessarily uses a Microsoft based system, and even if they did,
there will be many different software packages in use.

Yes, but why? We're talking the NHS, not a series of private companies.
Surely someone, somewhere, should have standardised IT equipment across
the NHS years ago? Perhaps I'm wrong, but I just cannot imagine any
large private organisation with multiple buildings and branches allowing
each to go their own way when installing something like IT equipment.
What would be the point?
--
Graeme

On Monday, 11 April 2016 09:27:26 UTC+1, News wrote:
The thought of all these people in every ward, department and surgery in
the NHS employed to duplicate notes that are already available is
terrifying. I realise that the NHS computer system costs hit the
headlines every now and again, but surely the sharing of information was
solved by every other large company years ago? The NHS is larger, of
course, but we're only talking scale.


The NHS knows it can't even trust doctors with patient information.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...ecords-privacy

Owain

On 11/04/2016 10:31, News wrote:
In message , charles
writes
In article ,
News wrote:

The NHS is larger, of
course, but we're only talking scale.

No, we're not. We are considering a multiplicity of trusts and medical
practices each with their own system and each with their own
finances. Not
everybody necessarily uses a Microsoft based system, and even if they
did,
there will be many different software packages in use.

Yes, but why? We're talking the NHS, not a series of private companies.
Surely someone, somewhere, should have standardised IT equipment across
the NHS years ago? Perhaps I'm wrong, but I just cannot imagine any
large private organisation with multiple buildings and branches allowing
each to go their own way when installing something like IT equipment.
What would be the point?

The amount of handwriting that goes on is staggering, even logging BP
etc . Foreign nurses scribbling notes for foreign doctors

In article , mjadams25
@ukonline.co.uk says...

Basically the integrity of the software, and thus the data, might
depend on the abilities of hundreds of "caring" NHS staff with
very little aptitude or affection for IT.

A few years ago, some of my medication was changed to a different type of the
same kind of drug.

The prescription was accompanied by an explanatory note. This had obviously
been provided by the drug company providing the 'new' drug as a basis for the
practice's own letter but they simply copied the original and handed that
out.

They also obviously used the time honoured quality degradation method of
photocopying whereby the original disappeared and every time they were close
to running out, one of the previous batch was copied.

The copy I received was just barely legible - in fact, the only thing that
was easy to read on it was my handwritten name!

Aptitude for IT? I don't think so ...

--

Terry

On Mon, 11 Apr 2016 10:31:00 +0100, News wrote:

No, we're not. We are considering a multiplicity of trusts and
medical
practices each with their own system and each with their own
finances.

Yes, but why? We're talking the NHS, not a series of private companies.

See paragraph above.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I just cannot imagine any large private
organisation with multiple buildings and branches allowing each to go
their own way when installing something like IT equipment. What would be
the point?

Your example is a invalid as the NHS is not a single entity. It's a
collection of independant "trusts" "foundations" etc. All with
boards, CEO's etc etc. It's more akin to a group of private
companies. Each group member company does what it wants to do under
some, loose, overall control from the groups board.

--
Cheers
Dave.

In message l.net,
Dave Liquorice writes
On Mon, 11 Apr 2016 10:31:00 +0100, News wrote:

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I just cannot imagine any large private
organisation with multiple buildings and branches allowing each to go
their own way when installing something like IT equipment. What would be
the point?

Your example is a invalid as the NHS is not a single entity. It's a
collection of independant "trusts" "foundations" etc. All with
boards, CEO's etc etc. It's more akin to a group of private
companies. Each group member company does what it wants to do under
some, loose, overall control from the groups board.

Point taken, but still, why? Too late now, of course, but the NHS IS a
single entity, and should be treated as such. What I don't understand
is how each division has been allowed to go their own way. Royal Mail
and the Post Office are similar examples, yet they manage to
communicate, at least internally.
--
Graeme

"Terry Casey" wrote in message
...

Aptitude for IT? I don't think so ...

The only time I ever see my doctor is for a compulsory
"medication review" about every 9 months or so.
The fact that I monitor my own BP, on two different
monitors, just to be sure, makes no difference.
The waiting room is usually full of screaming babies.
The rational response to this is that these screaming
babies have every right to be here, in fact more right
as they're actually ill whereas I'm not. Similarly the
reasons that my appointments are usually runninhg
twenty of more minutes late is simply because the
doctor is seeing people who are really ill.
Unfortunately my blood pressure isn't governed by
rationalisations, but by the actual screaming babies and
the twenty minute waits.
When I finally go into the surgery he's already tapping
away; and he's tapping away for the whole five minutes
I'm in there. The screen is angled away making it
impossible for patients to see. Very often the first
reading is high, and I explain about the home readings
and everything else. I've even bought him printouts.
And yet every time this seems to come as big surprise
to him; so what he's tapping away at is anybody'd guess;
but its certainly nothing to do with me.
Maybe he's posting on Twitter or Facebook, dunno.


michael adams

....

"Tim Streater" wrote in message
.. .
In article , michael
adams wrote:

"Terry Casey" wrote in message
...

Aptitude for IT? I don't think so ...

And yet every time this seems to come as big surprise
to him; so what he's tapping away at is anybody'd guess;
but its certainly nothing to do with me.
Maybe he's posting on Twitter or Facebook, dunno.

Mmm. Also would be good to be sure it's *your* record he's tapping
into. On one occasion I didn't realise he wasn't, until I went to
present the prescription he'd printed off to the dispensary, and
realised the name on it wasn't mine.

At least one undoubted beneft of IT, is printed prescriptions.

I always check I get the correct prescription, atenolol 50mg and that's about it.

I'm happy to stick with this guy as it was he who straightaway put me on BB's
when my BP was much higher - a fact that didn't seem to bother my regular
doctor. I only saw this new guy when I needed an appointment over something
and the regular guy was on holiday. So I've stuck with him ever since.

Then when he was on holiday I needed another appointment for something
else and this doctor sat tapping away working her way through the very same
list of symptoms I'd checked out for myself online before making the appointment.

And yes the Cochrane Study did indicate that BB's aren't necessarily the most
effective medication for preventing cardiac episodes. But very they're effective
for my BP at least; which itself corrollates very strongly with a lower risk of
cardiac episodes.


michael adams

....

On 11/04/2016 09:27, News wrote:

The thought of all these people in every ward, department and surgery in
the NHS employed to duplicate notes that are already available is
terrifying. I realise that the NHS computer system costs hit the
headlines every now and again, but surely the sharing of information was
solved by every other large company years ago? The NHS is larger, of
course, but we're only talking scale.


After a series of alarming cock-ups caused by NHS left hand/ right hand
communication issues I now keep a medical diary for my dad. Every event,
every consultation, every prescription, is noted down.

Bill

On 11/04/2016 11:01, Terry Casey wrote:

Aptitude for IT? I don't think so ...


I've tried many times to help our practice manager solve her little IT
issues, things that I, who is an IT ignoramus, can understand. Things
like making a form in Word so the rectangles don't change shape (causing
half the page to migrate in garbled form to the next page) when the
customer types into the form. Things like not sending out .docx
documents when a lot of people haven't yet migrated beyond Windows 97 or
whatever it was called. Things like basic page formatting. The result? I
have been called a 'nerd'.

Bill

On 11/04/2016 10:31, News wrote:

Yes, but why? We're talking the NHS, not a series of private companies.

And that's the problem in a nutshell. No profit motive, no
accountability, and loads of jobsworth chips off shoulders.

Surely someone, somewhere, should have standardised IT equipment across
the NHS years ago? Perhaps I'm wrong, but I just cannot imagine any
large private organisation with multiple buildings and branches allowing
each to go their own way when installing something like IT equipment.
What would be the point?

No one in the NHS is in charge of IT. Tony Bliar appointed an IT czar
and paid him £250,000 a year back in 2001 and after spending god knows
how many billions it still didn't work seamlessly and the coalition had
to cancel it to reduce Gob****es annual £150 Billion deficit
(coincidentally the same as the annual cost of the NHS, so actually
no-one (alive) is paying for the NHS). Most,if not all hospitals are
electronically linked to the GPs in their catchment area. It's when
patients venture out of their usual patch that problems can occur.

On 11/04/2016 12:38, Huge wrote:

Mind you, if you want to see a *real* shambles, you should try the
American healthcare "system" (quotes because there is no system). An
emergency leading to an ambulance ride, ER (A&E) and admission can lead
to a dozen separate bills, and it's almost inevitable that some of them
will be wrong.


If it wasn't for the private US healthcare system, and the semi-private
German and Japanese systems, the NHS would still be collecting blood
into glass washed-out bottles, xray machines would be primitive,
innacurate and using silver halide, modern antibiotics and cancer drugs
would not exist, TB would still be treated by building hospitals next to
the sea with no heating and massive windows to be left open most of the
time, red, white cell and platelet counts would be done by manually
counting them using a counting chanber and a microscope and a clicker.

My first job was at the Welsh Transfusion Centre in 1971 and they were
only just phasing out glass collection bottles and rubber taking and
giving sets.

It was the profit motive that has given the NHS wonderful new drugs and
surgical techniques, digital xrays, MRI and CT scanners, baxter-fenwal
blood bags, beckman-coulter pathology analysers, robotic surgeons
assistance for getting at prostate problems,... the list is endless.

All this stuff was designed, developed and made in those three
countries, while we were ****ing away money on TSR2, Blue streak and
other nonsense like massively subsidizing pointless jobs in the British
rustbelt industries,shipping, ports, BLMH, BA and BR.

On 11/04/2016 12:43, News wrote:

Point taken, but still, why? Too late now, of course, but the NHS IS a
single entity, and should be treated as such. What I don't understand
is how each division has been allowed to go their own way. Royal Mail
and the Post Office are similar examples, yet they manage to
communicate, at least internally.

Because it employs 1,400,000 people, larger than the Chinese army. It is
the classic supertanker that cannot change course without being
weaponised by the public service unions and joe public who (mis)believes
that it is 'free' and fully paid for by the trivial amounts of NI and
tax that most people pay. (As opposed to the 28% of total income tax
that just the top 1% of taxpayers contribute).

On 11/04/2016 14:08, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-11, Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 10:31, News wrote:

Yes, but why? We're talking the NHS, not a series of private companies.

And that's the problem in a nutshell. No profit motive, no
accountability, and loads of jobsworth chips off shoulders.

Sadly, having had some exposure to the American "system", I can assure
you it's considerably worse.

Still not a problem if you have effective medical insurance (which most
big employers provided). The insurance company with their skyscrapers
full of clerks argue over the bill with the hospital of physician.

We wouldn't have an NHS if other countries (who provide all the hi-tech
kit and drugs) didn't have a profit-based system.

On 4/11/2016 9:08 AM, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-11, Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 10:31, News wrote:

Yes, but why? We're talking the NHS, not a series of private companies.

And that's the problem in a nutshell. No profit motive, no
accountability, and loads of jobsworth chips off shoulders.

Sadly, having had some exposure to the American "system", I can assure
you it's considerably worse.

Having also experienced both systems, I agree with you.

On Monday, 11 April 2016 14:34:43 UTC+1, Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 14:08, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-11, Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 10:31, News wrote:

Yes, but why? We're talking the NHS, not a series of private companies.

And that's the problem in a nutshell. No profit motive, no
accountability, and loads of jobsworth chips off shoulders.

Sadly, having had some exposure to the American "system", I can assure
you it's considerably worse.

Still not a problem if you have effective medical insurance (which most
big employers provided).

Which most employers don't when it comes down to it, virtually anything you'll need hospital treatment won't be covered.


The insurance company with their skyscrapers
full of clerks argue over the bill with the hospital of physician.

and that's where the money stays.


We wouldn't have an NHS if other countries (who provide all the hi-tech
kit and drugs) didn't have a profit-based system.

Yeah right.

Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-11, Dave wrote:

On Mon, 11 Apr 2016 10:31:00 +0100, News wrote:


No, we're not. We are considering a multiplicity of trusts and

medical

practices each with their own system and each with their own

finances.

Yes, but why? We're talking the NHS, not a series of private companies.

See paragraph above.


Perhaps I'm wrong, but I just cannot imagine any large private
organisation with multiple buildings and branches allowing each to go
their own way when installing something like IT equipment. What would be
the point?

Your example is a invalid as the NHS is not a single entity. It's a
collection of independant "trusts" "foundations" etc. All with
boards, CEO's etc etc. It's more akin to a group of private
companies. Each group member company does what it wants to do under
some, loose, overall control from the groups board.

Mind you, if you want to see a *real* shambles, you should try the
American healthcare "system" (quotes because there is no system). An
emergency leading to an ambulance ride, ER (A&E) and admission can lead
to a dozen separate bills, and it's almost inevitable that some of them
will be wrong.



No, all of them will be wrong and all of them will be sold on
to debt collectors whether they are paid or not!. We've been chased by
all manner of people over a period in excess of 2 years, for a bill for
$120 which had been paid. It must have cost a fortune in paperwork and
postage. However, it really showed the benefit of having travel
insurance and the premium did not rise significantly on the next trip.

My last sojourn in an NHS hospital recently, found everyone
filling in multiple A4 page forms and putting them into files over an
inch thick. I guess as insurance against malpractice lawsuits. The care
was superb. The food was crap!

In article ,
whisky-dave wrote:
On Monday, 11 April 2016 14:34:43 UTC+1, Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 14:08, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-11, Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 10:31, News wrote:

Yes, but why? We're talking the NHS, not a series of private
companies.

And that's the problem in a nutshell. No profit motive, no
accountability, and loads of jobsworth chips off shoulders.

Sadly, having had some exposure to the American "system", I can
assure you it's considerably worse.

Still not a problem if you have effective medical insurance (which most
big employers provided).

Which most employers don't when it comes down to it, virtually anything
you'll need hospital treatment won't be covered.

When I was working I had a BUPA subscription, discounted because of who my
employer was. I caught Legionella and had private treatment. BUPA tried
to tell me I wasn't covered!

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 12:38, Huge wrote:

Mind you, if you want to see a *real* shambles, you should try the
American healthcare "system" (quotes because there is no system). An
emergency leading to an ambulance ride, ER (A&E) and admission can lead
to a dozen separate bills, and it's almost inevitable that some of them
will be wrong.


If it wasn't for the private US healthcare system, and the
semi-private German and Japanese systems, the NHS would still be
collecting blood into glass washed-out bottles, xray machines would be
primitive, innacurate and using silver halide, modern antibiotics and
cancer drugs would not exist, TB would still be treated by building
hospitals next to the sea with no heating and massive windows to be
left open most of the time, red, white cell and platelet counts would
be done by manually counting them using a counting chanber and a
microscope and a clicker.

My first job was at the Welsh Transfusion Centre in 1971 and they were
only just phasing out glass collection bottles and rubber taking and
giving sets.

It was the profit motive that has given the NHS wonderful new drugs
and surgical techniques, digital xrays, MRI and CT scanners,
baxter-fenwal blood bags, beckman-coulter pathology analysers, robotic
surgeons assistance for getting at prostate problems,... the list is
endless.

All this stuff was designed, developed and made in those three
countries, while we were ****ing away money on TSR2, Blue streak and
other nonsense like massively subsidizing pointless jobs in the
British rustbelt industries,shipping, ports, BLMH, BA and BR.

Pity you know nothing about technology. I was working on the
basics of MRI scanning in the UK in 1959 for GEC research. IIRC EMI at
Feltham developed the MRI machines, the US followed. The defence
industry provided the research funds for all sorts of products in the
1960s and provided the UK with a superb technological base. The UK had
the basic patents for FETs and LCDs. New drugs come from a variety of
companies, look to see who owns the drugs market. The US drugs market is
an extortion system, where the Drs are paid to prescribe new drugs,
which frequently are inferior to the existing products, Exalto(?) is a
good example, which as I understand it is inferior to Warfarin.

Antibiotics were a british invention, developed further by the
drugs companies need to have a patent protected product which could be
sold for a higher price.

The move to automated testing was spurred on by the excessive
costs of labour for manual testing, it's the same in any industry. To
this day, if you want an accurate answer, you will use manual testing.
Automated testing is not always reliable.

Having built a gas chromatograph analyser in 5 days(with a team
of 5 other people), I know that the UK was ahead of the field in many
areas and still is.

Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 14:08, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-11, Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 10:31, News wrote:

Yes, but why? We're talking the NHS, not a series of private
companies.

And that's the problem in a nutshell. No profit motive, no
accountability, and loads of jobsworth chips off shoulders.

Sadly, having had some exposure to the American "system", I can assure
you it's considerably worse.

Still not a problem if you have effective medical insurance (which
most big employers provided). The insurance company with their
skyscrapers full of clerks argue over the bill with the hospital of
physician.

We wouldn't have an NHS if other countries (who provide all the
hi-tech kit and drugs) didn't have a profit-based system.

You don't seem to have any real knowledge or experience of the
US health system.

On Mon, 11 Apr 2016 16:24:21 +0100, pamela wrote:

So that's 10,000,000,000,000 pounds

That's Olde Englishe billions! Everyone uses American billions these
days, 10^9.

--
TOJ.

In article ,
Andrew wrote:
Because it employs 1,400,000 people, larger than the Chinese army.

You must read the Mail.

The NHS is the 5th largest employer in the world.

Beaten by McDonalds, Walmart, Chinese Military and the US Department of
Defence.

And I'd guess the rest of your rant is equally as accurate...

--
*Why 'that tie suits you' but 'those shoes suit you'?*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Mon, 11 Apr 2016 11:01:13 +0100, Terry Casey
wrote:

In article , mjadams25
says...

Basically the integrity of the software, and thus the data, might
depend on the abilities of hundreds of "caring" NHS staff with
very little aptitude or affection for IT.

A few years ago, some of my medication was changed to a different type of the
same kind of drug.

The prescription was accompanied by an explanatory note. This had obviously
been provided by the drug company providing the 'new' drug as a basis for the
practice's own letter but they simply copied the original and handed that
out.

They also obviously used the time honoured quality degradation method of
photocopying whereby the original disappeared and every time they were close
to running out, one of the previous batch was copied.

The copy I received was just barely legible - in fact, the only thing that
was easy to read on it was my handwritten name!

Aptitude for IT? I don't think so ...

FP10 forms (prescriptions) are routinely sent between surgery to
pharmacy by, you guessed it, the good old-fashioned fax machine.




--

Graham.

%Profound_observation%

On 11/04/2016 09:27, News wrote:

First and foremost, this is an observation, not a complaint about the
NHS. Long story short, last Friday, my GP arranged for me to attend
hospital fairly urgently, and the visit turned into an overnight stay.
Home now, and doing well. My GP and the NHS probably saved my life, but
that is another story.

They are quite good at that.

Talking to GP, he asked me to call in at surgery for my notes, to hand
to doctor on arrival at hospital, 45 miles away. When I arrived, I had
to give my medical life story, and again at each new ward/doctor. When
leaving, another set of notes were given to me, to hand to my GP this week.

What is going on at the NHS? Surely this should all be electronic in
this day and age?

I asked this question last week, when I had to give the consultant a
synopsis of my partner's eye condition because her notes were at a
different hospital. I was told that there had been delays after the
Information Commissioner decided that patients had to opt in to the
system, rather than be included unless they opted out. Just getting
approvals from all those willing for their records to be put on a
central computer, let alone working out who couldn't be included, was
taking a long time. The current aim, in my local Trust, is to start
computerising records by the end of this year, although, obviously, it
will still take a while to convert all the paper records.

Same health authority, yet it seems that notes taken
in local surgery cannot be accessed by local hospital, and even notes
taken in one hospital ward cannot be accessed by another ward in the
same hospital.

Around here, ward notes are taken on notebooks connected to the hospital
intranet, so that wouldn't happen. However, different hospitals are not
yet linked, so the notes get transferred to paper and filed.

I would expect that, if I had an accident 500 miles from
home, whichever hospital I attended would have immediate access to my
notes going back to birth. Apparently not. OK, perhaps not back to
1952, but at least as far back as the general introduction of computers.
Say 30 years....

AIUI, my GP's surgery has had all my notes on computer for several
years, so, when they eventually get around to centralising notes, it
shouldn't take long to transfer those.

--
Colin Bignell

On 11/04/2016 16:39, Capitol wrote:


Pity you know nothing about technology. I was working on the
basics of MRI scanning in the UK in 1959 for GEC research. IIRC EMI at
Feltham developed the MRI machines, the US followed. The defence
industry provided the research funds for all sorts of products in the
1960s and provided the UK with a superb technological base. The UK had
the basic patents for FETs and LCDs. New drugs come from a variety of
companies, look to see who owns the drugs market. The US drugs market is
an extortion system, where the Drs are paid to prescribe new drugs,
which frequently are inferior to the existing products, Exalto(?) is a
good example, which as I understand it is inferior to Warfarin.

There are no purely British CT or MRI scanners anywhere in the NHS, they
are all Siemens. Whatever people like you did in the 60's is history,
along with the companies you worked for. Unlike you I have worked in NHS
path labs and I know where all the analysers came from in to 70's, and
it wasn't Britain.

Antibiotics were a british invention, developed further by the
drugs companies need to have a patent protected product which could be
sold for a higher price.


Pencillin was discovered (not invented) at St Marys hospital but it was
Americans who developed mass production.

The move to automated testing was spurred on by the excessive
costs of labour for manual testing, it's the same in any industry. To
this day, if you want an accurate answer, you will use manual testing.
Automated testing is not always reliable.

ROFL !!!. You are clueless. Have you ever been inside a routine NHS
pathology lab processing hundreds of requests every day ?. Many of the
parameters now produced by a beckman-coulter blood counter/analyser can
never be derived 'manually'.

Having built a gas chromatograph analyser in 5 days(with a team
of 5 other people), I know that the UK was ahead of the field in many
areas and still is.

Irrelevent to the diagnostic requirements of a busy hospital path lab.

On 11/04/2016 18:22, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Andrew wrote:
Because it employs 1,400,000 people, larger than the Chinese army.

You must read the Mail.

The NHS is the 5th largest employer in the world.

Beaten by McDonalds, Walmart, Chinese Military and the US Department of
Defence.

And I'd guess the rest of your rant is equally as accurate...

What do you not understand by the NHS headcount being 1,400,000 ?. It
was 960,000 before NuLiebour got into power and went on a hiring spree.

The top 1% of tax payers pay 28% of the total income tax paid. You can
find that on the HMRC website.

"pamela" wrote in message
...

In my mind these failed NHS patient records projects have blurred
into one another although I recall one was written off to the tune
of £10bn a few years ago.


The reason many such projects fail IMO is simply because when
pitching to govt departments, their promoters grossly overstate
the potential enthusiasm of end users for their system. Basically
people are conservative and resistant to change and will frustrate
it at every opportunity. Never mind sabotaging it purely by
accident.

The politicians and decision makers don't want to contradict
them on what they assume are technical matters, rather than total
bull****, for fear of making themselves look stupid; which is
the basis on which all sorts of fortunes, not just in IT
but in consultancy and outsourcing generally, have been
based.


michael adams

....

On 11/04/2016 14:55, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-11, Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 14:08, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-11, Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 10:31, News wrote:

Yes, but why? We're talking the NHS, not a series of private companies.

And that's the problem in a nutshell. No profit motive, no
accountability, and loads of jobsworth chips off shoulders.

Sadly, having had some exposure to the American "system", I can assure
you it's considerably worse.

Still not a problem if you have effective medical insurance (which most
big employers provided). The insurance company with their skyscrapers
full of clerks argue over the bill with the hospital of physician.

Untrue.

We wouldn't have an NHS if other countries (who provide all the hi-tech
kit and drugs) didn't have a profit-based system.

Doubtful.

Fact. Do some basic research on the country of origin of all the hitech
kit that the NHS utterly depends on. USA, Germany, Japan, Finland,
Holland, Israel are countries you will routinely find on the
manufactures info plate. One label you won't see is 'Made in England'.
You will have to look beneath beds and trolleys to see that. Or perhaps
the catering equipment in those hospitals that don't feed the patient on
cook-chill gloop made in french-owned factory in Gwent.

"michael adams" wrote in message
o.uk...

"Terry Casey" wrote in message
...

Aptitude for IT? I don't think so ...

The only time I ever see my doctor is for a compulsory
"medication review" about every 9 months or so.
The fact that I monitor my own BP, on two different
monitors, just to be sure, makes no difference.
The waiting room is usually full of screaming babies.
The rational response to this is that these screaming
babies have every right to be here, in fact more right
as they're actually ill whereas I'm not. Similarly the
reasons that my appointments are usually runninhg
twenty of more minutes late is simply because the
doctor is seeing people who are really ill.
Unfortunately my blood pressure isn't governed by
rationalisations, but by the actual screaming babies and
the twenty minute waits.
When I finally go into the surgery he's already tapping
away; and he's tapping away for the whole five minutes
I'm in there. The screen is angled away making it
impossible for patients to see. Very often the first
reading is high, and I explain about the home readings
and everything else. I've even bought him printouts.
And yet every time this seems to come as big surprise
to him; so what he's tapping away at is anybody'd guess;
but its certainly nothing to do with me.
Maybe he's posting on Twitter or Facebook, dunno.

He's reporting to the loony bin that you still have rabid
blood shot eyes and flecks of foam about the lips and
look like you are about to murder someone.

On 11/04/2016 17:52, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-11, Capitol wrote:
Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 14:08, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-11, Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 10:31, News wrote:

Yes, but why? We're talking the NHS, not a series of private
companies.

And that's the problem in a nutshell. No profit motive, no
accountability, and loads of jobsworth chips off shoulders.

Sadly, having had some exposure to the American "system", I can assure
you it's considerably worse.

Still not a problem if you have effective medical insurance (which
most big employers provided). The insurance company with their
skyscrapers full of clerks argue over the bill with the hospital of
physician.

We wouldn't have an NHS if other countries (who provide all the
hi-tech kit and drugs) didn't have a profit-based system.

You don't seem to have any real knowledge or experience of the
US health system.

Or indeed of anything else.


I worked in a hospital path lab for 7 years. All the essential analysers
were American (Beckman, Coulter, Technicon). The only British CT scanner
factory (Philips medical) was in Crawley and that closed down years ago.

On Monday, 11 April 2016 18:32:02 UTC+1, wrote:
AIUI, my GP's surgery has had all my notes on computer for several
years, so, when they eventually get around to centralising notes, it
shouldn't take long to transfer those.

They'll probably be printed out by the surgery and posted to a depressed area in the north of England, then scanned and emailed to the Philippines, printed out again and and then typed into the NHS system.

Even if the GP's system and the NHS system have compatible file formats, there's more profit for the IT contractors charging for data input and they'll build that into their project bid.

Owain

On 11/04/2016 09:27, News wrote:

First and foremost, this is an observation, not a complaint about the
NHS. Long story short, last Friday, my GP arranged for me to attend
hospital fairly urgently, and the visit turned into an overnight stay.
Home now, and doing well. My GP and the NHS probably saved my life, but
that is another story.

Talking to GP, he asked me to call in at surgery for my notes, to hand
to doctor on arrival at hospital, 45 miles away. When I arrived, I had
to give my medical life story, and again at each new ward/doctor. When
leaving, another set of notes were given to me, to hand to my GP this week.

What is going on at the NHS? Surely this should all be electronic in
this day and age? Same health authority, yet it seems that notes taken
in local surgery cannot be accessed by local hospital, and even notes
taken in one hospital ward cannot be accessed by another ward in the
same hospital. I would expect that, if I had an accident 500 miles from
home, whichever hospital I attended would have immediate access to my
notes going back to birth. Apparently not. OK, perhaps not back to
1952, but at least as far back as the general introduction of computers.
Say 30 years.

The thought of all these people in every ward, department and surgery in
the NHS employed to duplicate notes that are already available is
terrifying. I realise that the NHS computer system costs hit the
headlines every now and again, but surely the sharing of information was
solved by every other large company years ago? The NHS is larger, of
course, but we're only talking scale.

It's not just duplicating notes. In November, my wife went in for carpal
tunnel surgery. She arrived on time (very early in the morning), waited
20 minutes and then was taken to a side room. In the side room she was
asked, name, address, date of birth, medical conditions, allergies and
so on. All well and good. However before she got to theatre (about 3-1/2
hours later), she was asked the same set of questions, by different
staff, seven times! What a complete waste of time and money.

When she went back in March to have her other wrist done, they were a
little better, with only three lots of the same questions, no pre-op
assessment appointment beforehand (just a phone call to ask had anything
changed). On the other hand, the organisation was dire. She had to be in
by 07:15, which meant us getting the children up at 06:15 and round to
my parents. I then took the day off work (unpaid) to be ready to collect
her. She was taken to a side room straight away, was given a pre-med at
11:15 and finally was taken to theatre at 15:30. She was ready for pick
up at 17:30. She was apparently number 7 on the list, there were no
emergencies or unforseen delays, so why on earth she had to come in so
early, wait so long, go to theatre when her pre-med had pretty well worn
off and I had to lose a days pay, I cannot fathom.

In a similar vein, I had exploratory surgery a few years ago to
establish the grade and stage of my lymphoma - luckily it turned out to
be a wrong diagnosis and was instead the self-limiting condition,
pulmonary sarcoidosis. I had a pre-op assessment on the Wednesday, was
admitted on Thursday night and had the op on Friday morning. I was told
not to eat anything after 22:30 and to be ready for theatre at 10:30.
For this I had to be at the hospital at 20:00 and stay there overnight.
When I asked why I needed to be there on Thursday night, I was told that
it was the only way to reserve my bed - if I was not there to occupy the
bed, it might be given to someone else and then they'd have no bed for
me and so the op would be cancelled ... what was wrong with a reserved sign?

SteveW

On 11/04/2016 10:03, charles wrote:
In article ,
News wrote:

First and foremost, this is an observation, not a complaint about the
NHS. Long story short, last Friday, my GP arranged for me to attend
hospital fairly urgently, and the visit turned into an overnight stay.
Home now, and doing well. My GP and the NHS probably saved my life, but
that is another story.

Talking to GP, he asked me to call in at surgery for my notes, to hand
to doctor on arrival at hospital, 45 miles away. When I arrived, I had
to give my medical life story, and again at each new ward/doctor. When
leaving, another set of notes were given to me, to hand to my GP this
week.

What is going on at the NHS? Surely this should all be electronic in
this day and age? Same health authority, yet it seems that notes taken
in local surgery cannot be accessed by local hospital, and even notes
taken in one hospital ward cannot be accessed by another ward in the
same hospital. I would expect that, if I had an accident 500 miles from
home, whichever hospital I attended would have immediate access to my
notes going back to birth. Apparently not. OK, perhaps not back to
1952, but at least as far back as the general introduction of computers.
Say 30 years.

The thought of all these people in every ward, department and surgery in
the NHS employed to duplicate notes that are already available is
terrifying. I realise that the NHS computer system costs hit the
headlines every now and again, but surely the sharing of information was
solved by every other large company years ago? The NHS is larger, of
course, but we're only talking scale.

No, we're not. We are considering a multiplicity of trusts and medical
practices each with their own system and each with their own finances. Not
everybody necessarily uses a Microsoft based system, and even if they did,
there will be many different software packages in use.

Who cares what the software packages are. They will simply be pretty
front-ends to databases. The databases are probably readable by standard
SQL. Let the trusts have whatever software they want to pay for, just
require standardisation of all the important fields in the databases -
any non-important ones can just be ignored when extracting data to pass on.

On 11/04/2016 19:02, Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 14:55, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-11, Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 14:08, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-11, Andrew wrote:
On 11/04/2016 10:31, News wrote:

Yes, but why? We're talking the NHS, not a series of private
companies.

And that's the problem in a nutshell. No profit motive, no
accountability, and loads of jobsworth chips off shoulders.

Sadly, having had some exposure to the American "system", I can assure
you it's considerably worse.

Still not a problem if you have effective medical insurance (which most
big employers provided). The insurance company with their skyscrapers
full of clerks argue over the bill with the hospital of physician.

Untrue.

We wouldn't have an NHS if other countries (who provide all the hi-tech
kit and drugs) didn't have a profit-based system.

Doubtful.

Fact. Do some basic research on the country of origin of all the hitech
kit that the NHS utterly depends on. USA, Germany, Japan, Finland,
Holland, Israel are countries you will routinely find on the
manufactures info plate. One label you won't see is 'Made in England'.

They may not be made in England, but a good part of the research and
development will have happened here. Then, as usual, there will have
been insufficient support from the short-termist finance sector for
actually going into production and companies around the world, in
countries with an eye to the longer term, have reaped the financial
benefits.

On 11/04/2016 21:23, Steve Walker wrote:

It's not just duplicating notes. In November, my wife went in for carpal
tunnel surgery. She arrived on time (very early in the morning), waited
20 minutes and then was taken to a side room. In the side room she was
asked, name, address, date of birth, medical conditions, allergies and
so on. All well and good. However before she got to theatre (about 3-1/2
hours later), she was asked the same set of questions, by different
staff, seven times! What a complete waste of time and money.

I'm not one to defend the health service but these repeated questions
are deliberate standard practice and are designed specifically to ensure
that staff are always talking to the right person.

On 4/11/2016 5:14 PM, Nick wrote:
On 11/04/2016 21:23, Steve Walker wrote:

It's not just duplicating notes. In November, my wife went in for carpal
tunnel surgery. She arrived on time (very early in the morning), waited
20 minutes and then was taken to a side room. In the side room she was
asked, name, address, date of birth, medical conditions, allergies and
so on. All well and good. However before she got to theatre (about 3-1/2
hours later), she was asked the same set of questions, by different
staff, seven times! What a complete waste of time and money.

I'm not one to defend the health service but these repeated questions
are deliberate standard practice and are designed specifically to ensure
that staff are always talking to the right person.

The same thing happens in US hospitals.