This week’s useful health links

These are my links for May 21st through June:

  • Obesity Review Group meeting note – 19 April, 2012 | Transparency – The Obesity Review Group met on Thursday 19 April at Cathedral Room, Richmond House, Department of Health. The meeting was chaired by Anne Milton, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health.  Attached below are a summary of the meeting notes and actions.
  • NHS ‘pays up to THREE times over the odds’ for IT gear • The Channel– Here’s just one example of how the Department of Health is cutting deals that are worse than what other wholesale buyers are getting – and worse than what average punters are paying for: Mercato ITelligence claimed that the health managers pay £10.50 for 4GB memory sticks that cost £5.28 online.More ReadingNHS’s chances of getting world’s best IT: 80% … maybe*
    NHS trust goes 100% over IT budget in patient records rollout cockup
    Facebook button triggers tidal wave of human organs
    Bytes’ NHS deal loss hits revs – but biz margins rise
    NHS farms out £125m deal for hardware, medical tech
    The NHS buys tech with “extortionate” markups that are out of whack with the rest of the business world, warned the analysts.
  • BBC News – London 2012: Olympic VIP ‘A&E; fast-track’– Emails seen by Newsnight suggest that 25,000 people in the “Olympic family” could expect to see a consultant within 30 minutes at University College Hospital (UCLH).Olympic organisers Locog dismissed the 30-minute claim as an “urban myth”.NHS London says the arrangement did appear in a draft agreement but will not be part of new guidance.
  • Payment by results: information for clinical commissioners | Modernisation of health and care– The Department leads on the PbR arrangements for 2013-14, in consultation with Monitor and the NHS Commissioning Board. During 2012-13, the transition of responsibility for PbR to Monitor and the NHS Commissioning Board will begin.Beyond the 2013-14 tariff, Monitor and the NHS Commissioning Board will have responsibility for the tariff, currency design and price setting.
  • NHS cancelled elective operations, quarter ending 31 March 2012 | Media Centre
  • Department of Health strategy enabling online access to GP records – ADASS and Alzheimer’s Society comment– The framework, called ‘The power of information’ sets a ten-year framework to transform access to information for the NHS, public health and social care. It includes a commitment that people will be able to access their GP records online by 2015.The framework also aims for test results to be available electronically and for people to be able to book or re-arrange their medical appointments online.
  • Medical and social security records being stored unlawfully and inappropriately accessed, statistics show – Home News – UK – The Independent– Staff at the Department for Work and Pension (DWP) are being reprimanded at a rate of nearly five per day for breach of the rules governing its vast database – thought to be the largest of its kind in Europe – while the Department of Health (DoH) last year recorded 13 cases a month of unlawful access to medical records.The statistics, obtained by Channel 4’s Dispatches under the Freedom of Information Act, will increase concern about the security of personal data and the ease with which private investigators are selling access to personal and confidential information, much of which is held on state computer systems and is illegal to obtain without suitable authorisation.-
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About Paul Bradshaw

Founder of Help Me Investigate. I'm a visiting professor at City University London's School of Journalism, and run an MA in Online Journalism at Birmingham City University. I publish the Online Journalism Blog, and am the co-author of the Online Journalism Handbook and Magazine Editing (3rd edition). I have a particular interest in Freedom of Information and data journalism.