The National Programme for IT in the NHS and PACS

The National Programme for IT in the NHS and PACS

An Update

The National Programme for Information Technology(IT) in the NHS (NPfIT) is one of the world’s largest and most exciting IT projects. It will revolutionise the way information is transferred and used across the NHS, bringing significant benefits to patients and the clinicians who treat them. The National Programme was launched in 2002 and will be responsible for managing an additional investment of £2.3 billion on information technology for the NHS in England over the next three years.

One of its principal objectives is to improve patient choice and the quality and convenience of care by ensuring that those who give and receive care have the right information, at the right time.

The National Programme is implementing projects vital to the NHS modernisation programme and focuses on a number of key developments, which will make a significant difference to patients and those caring for them:

• an electronic Integrated Care Records Service with an NHS Care Record for each patient
• the provision of facilities for electronic booking of appointments
• an electronic transmission of prescriptions service
• an underpinning IT infrastructure with sufficient connectivity and broadband capacity to meet future NHS needs.

The National Clinical Advisory Board (NCAB) has been established to help shape the future of the National Programme for IT in the NHS and will further extend and formalise consultation with healthcare professionals. In turn, NCAB has a number of specialist working groups to advise it, including one on PACS, which is of particular interest to radiologists.

Digital images are an essential part of each patient’s NHS Care Record, hence PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System(s)) is being procured as part of the Local Service Provider contract, in the National Programme’s Integrated Care Records Service (ICRS).

Local Service Providers will provide IT systems and services, in the five geographical clusters in England, as well as ensuring that the national applications such as the NHS Care Record and Electronic Booking can be delivered locally.

PACS

The PACS programme will support the Government’s vision for film-less diagnostic services in acute hospitals (where the bulk of diagnostic services currently take place) and other NHS organisations where digital images are (or can be) created or viewed. PACS will also be used for education and the planning and delivery of clinical care and the intention is to make these solutions available to NHS organisations over the next three years.

It is worth looking at this programme more closely as it is in this part of the initiative that input from interested and informed clinicians might have a significant positive influence.

Each Cluster in England will have a Regional Implementation Director (RID) who will work with Strategic Health Authority (SHA) Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and others to implement the project locally.

There will be a consultation process in each cluster about PACS. If Trusts/SHAs in the cluster express an interest in PACS they will be asked to make out a business case. This is not too difficult as such cases may be taken off-the-shelf and modified for local requirements. A model PACS business case will be supplied by the NPfIT programme on request.

Whilst, there is no guarantee that all requests for PACS will be funded, it is clear that if there is no expression of interest there will be no funding for it. The important thing, therefore, is for all with an interest to contact their Trust Chief Executives, SHA CIOs and cluster RIDs to get involved with the process.

It seems likely that the strategy will have to evolve to include a more central role for PACS in future phases if the ambition to achieve a total PACS by the end of 2006 is to be fulfilled.

Peter Dawson (email: )

[For the PACS Working Group of the NCAB. Members: Peter Dawson, David Lloyd, David Harvey, Keith.Goldsworthy, Lionel Jarvis, Dewinder.Bhachu, Keith Foord, John.Pilling, Liz Beckmann, Laurence.Sutton, Nicola Strickland, Ian Arrowsmith]