Connecting for Health: Breakthrough or barrier

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Connecting for HealthBreakthrough or barrier?

• Chris Beasley
• Chief Nursing Officer
• Department of Health
• 28th March 2006

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Changing public expectations

• not a passive victim of illness
• A decision maker
• A care manager
• A co-producer of health
• An evaluator of quality
• An active citizen, voter taxpayer
• (Source The Autonomous Patient Angela Coulter)

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Future demographic challenges

• By 2020 twice as many people over 85 high
  use/high cost group
• 15 million people have a long-term condition
  LTCs are 50 of GP consultations and 75 of
  in-patient days
• people with severe learning disability may
  increase by 1 p.a. for the next 15 years
• Higher obesity rates more strokes, heart attack
  and Type 2 diabetes

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Our health, our care, our say

• Therefore .. A shift towards
• Prevention, public health and well-being
• Tackling inequalities
• More focussed support for people with LTC
• More services provided outside of hospitals,
  closer to home

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What does a patient-led service feel like?

• Getting good treatment in a comfortable, caring
  and safe environment, delivered in a calm and
  reassuring way.
• Having information to make choices, to feel
  confident and to feel in control.
• Being talked to and listened to as an equal.
• Being treated with honesty, respect and dignity.
• Now I feel tall. What a patient-led NHS feels
  like.
• (December 2005)

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Nursing Constants
Caring for Caring about .
confidence
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• Technology help or hindrance?

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• Informs practice
• Improves patient safety
• Catalyses research
• Supports patient professional partnerships
• Supports new roles

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Sexual Health Nurses in London
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Renal nurses in the West Midlands
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Community Nurses in Cornwall
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Internet cafes
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What can I do?

• Commit
• Design
• Implement
• Evaluate
• Ask how can I use technology to improve my
  practice/my service/my job

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What should I not do?

• Talk myself into the too difficult box.

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Contact

• is a new email and directory service

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What are its benefits?

• Staff can use Contact to exchange patient
  information securely with colleagues, provided
  they follow the guidelines
• The Contact service provides staff with an easy
  to remember email address for the duration of
  their career within the NHS
• The service levels for Contact are guaranteed,
  meaning that staff can be confident in the
  availability of the service and in the delivery
  times for messages
• Contact can be used to check the free/busy time
  of colleagues across the NHS to set up meetings
  or plan other work
• Staff can access their Contact account from any
  computer that is connected to the NHS network or
  the internet, meaning that staff who work across
  multiple organisations or are community based can
  still have access to their email
• Staff can use Contact to send fax of SMS text
  messages direct from email, making keeping in
  touch with colleagues even easier

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• Register at www.nhs.net

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• Our opportunity, Our programme