Updated in October 2021, NHS Kernow CCG and NHS Doncaster CCG have now taken the top positions in a leaderboard for website accessibility, comparing all CCG websites in England. The top two positions were previously held by NHS Kent and Medway CCG and NHS North Cumbria CCG.

Silktide, a company that compares millions of websites, has released its latest analysis into CCG websites for usability, including content, accessibility, marketing, mobile, social, speed, and legal compliance.

The Index is a league table created to show how organisations in various industries compare for web accessibility, the practice of making a website usable by everyone, regardless of ability or disability. Its primary aim is inclusion, no matter what a user’s circumstance, and aims to ensure support for a variety of users, such as those with low vision who may have trouble reading low-contrast text on a web page or a user on a mobile device in bright sunlight. The company measures the websites against the international standard for web accessibility, WCAG 2.1.

The top five CCG websites include:

1. NHS Kernow CCG
2. NHS Doncaster CCG
3. NHS Kent and Medway CCG
4. NHS Wakefield CCG
5. NHS North Cumbria CCG

HTN last reported on the Index in July 2021, when we highlighted that the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust were top of the leaderboard for NHS trusts with a score of 99.4 per cent. NHS Kernow CCG received a score of 91 per cent.

The website from Silktide also highlights recommendations for improvement, which can include ensuring controls change appearance when they are selected, alternative text for images inside links, that links are distinguished by more than just colour, links explain their purpose and content is not too difficult to understand.

To find out more, view the Index here.

A new funding programme has been launched by NHSX to support up to four cardiac networks to implement remote monitoring.

£3 million in funding has been made available, with up to £750,000 for each project, to help cardiology and cardiac surgery pathways with digital tools.

This includes technology to support surgery patients pre and post-procedure, monitoring people on waiting lists to spot signs of deterioration sooner, managing conditions at home and monitoring recovery.

NHSX will provide support with market engagement, pathway design, workflow, assurance and evaluation, and providing a support system where needed.

Each application must name a lead medical director or clinical lead, nominate a CCG or cardiac centre to receive and host the programme, and provide a commitment to implement a digital tool and onboard a significant number of patients by 31 March 2022.

NHSX has advised that, for applications to be successful, they must have high levels of IT and clinical governance in place, commit to the pace of the programme and complete procurement by the end of 2021.

The cardiac networks must agree expectations and deliverables, ensure resources are in place to deliver the programme, and commit to an evaluation stage. This stage will include measuring the impact on patients, unplanned attendances and admissions, productivity benefits, impact on patient morbidity, value for money and sustainability.

Applications can be submitted up until 6 August 2021, with shortlisted applicants notified in the same month. Funding will be deployed in September will installation of digital tools to take place before the end of the year, and on boarding of patients to start January 2022.

To find out more, please visit the NHSX website here.

In March 2021, HTN reported on a comparison of NHS trust and CCG websites for usability, including content, accessibility, marketing, mobile, social, speed, and legal compliance.

Since our news story, six NHS trust websites have moved into the top 10 in ‘the index’, from Silktide, a company that compares millions of websites.

The company has produced the league table which highlights how organisations in various industries, including health and care settings, compare for web accessibility. It focuses on the practice of making a website usable by everyone, regardless of ability or disability. Its primary aim is inclusion, no matter what a user’s circumstance, and aims to ensure support for a variety of users, such as those with low vision who may have trouble reading low-contrast text on a web page or a user on a mobile device in bright sunlight. The company measures the websites against the international standard for web accessibility, WCAG 2.1.

The trusts joining the top of the leaderboard include Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, Princess Royal University Hospital, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, Barking, Havering, and Redbridge University Hospitals, Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust and West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust

The highest rated trust is Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, with a score of 99.2%. The top 10 includes:

1. Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust
2. Princess Royal University Hospital
3. Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
4. Barking, Havering, and Redbridge University Hospitals
5. Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust
6. North Bristol NHS Trust
7. North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust
8. Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust
9. West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust
10. Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust

For CCG websites, there is a new leader, up from second place to first, NHS Kent and Medway CCG scored 90%. NHS Halton Warrington CCG and NHS North Central London CCG have also joined the top five. The top five includes:

1. NHS Kent and Medway CCG
2. NHS North Cumbria CCG
3. NHS Wakefield CCG
4. NHS Halton Warrington CCG
5. NHS North Central London CCG

The website from Silktide also highlights recommendations for improvement, which can include ensuring controls change appearance when they are selected, alternative text for images inside links, that links are distinguished by more than just colour, links explain their purpose and content is not too difficult to understand.

To find out more, view the Index here.

The hospital typically takes 30% of emergency patients from across Dorset CCG, and now can view GP records and other datasets for these patients.

Paul Foster, Deputy Chief Medical Officer at Yeovil Hospital “Being located so close to the Dorset border means, inevitably, a large number of patients come from outside of Somerset.”

“This can create challenges so it is great to be able to overcome these and provide a more enhanced, joined-up approach with our Dorset healthcare colleagues, with the patients’ needs at the centre of all we do.”

The work was fast tracked due to the current pandemic to ensure staff have access to the infroamiton they need instantly.

Last month 7,854 records were viewed by over 1,500 healthcare professionals. Currently 7 different IT systems feed information into the record providing access when needed to one million records.

The platform is currently providing the below data:

Peter Gill, Dorset Care Record Senior Responsible Officer and Director of Informatics at the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals, said “I am delighted we have been able to ensure that the Dorset Care Record is now available to Emergency Department and other key clinicians at Yeovil Hospital.”

“It is vital that staff have the most up to date patient records when tackling coronavirus cases. By having the Dorset Care Record, it provides staff with additional patient information – data really does save lives.”

“I’d like to thank Yeovil Hospital and our global healthcare provider Orion Health for turning this around so quickly.”

Care homes across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire will for the first time be able to share digital records, following an approved grant from NHS Digital.

The project will see the roll-out of the digital record system, Connecting Care, to care homes across the region to share records with hospitals, GPs and other health services.

The grant of £300,000 from NHS Digital has been secured to fund the roll out to bring care home in line with more than 24 other health and care organisations in the area which already use the system.

Harriet Soderberg, Project Manager, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire CCG “Bringing care homes into the Connecting Care system will allow authorised care home staff immediate access to important information shared by other health and social care professionals.”

“It will help ensure care home residents do not have to tell their story more than once, improve the safety and efficiency of patient transfers between hospital and care homes and enable professionals to make the right care decisions based on up to date information.”

“This is a key part of our ambition to improve digital coordination between different health and social care services. Care homes are an essential part of our health and care system and enabling them to join Connecting Care will support all care professionals to provide better, safer and more efficient care to people who live in care homes.”

“This is a truly innovative step towards digital integration and we are excited to be offering the opportunity for care homes in our region to move forward with us and provide the best care.”

Helen Mee, integrated discharge service lead,North Bristol NHS Trust “The ability to instantly access a care record with more information about our patient will allow us to make significant improvements to our setting of goals. It will help with our work to establishing where individual patients need to go when they leave hospital and how they want to be cared for when they’re with us. It will help us to provide the person centred care we strive to achieve.”

The bid for funding was made by South Gloucestershire Council, Bristol City Council, North Somerset Council and Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), supported by South Central and West Commissioning Support Unit.

The project has begun at the Orders of St John Care Trust in South Gloucestershire and will be made available to up to 50 care homes in the coming months.

Cllr Ben Stokes, South Gloucestershire Council Cabinet Member for Adults and Public Health “I am delighted that South Gloucestershire Council has taken the lead role in successfully bidding for NHS England funds and becoming a Digital Pathfinder on behalf of Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.”

“This initiative will ensure that people being discharged from hospital to a care home, or being admitted to hospital from a care home will only have to tell their story once and that health and social care professionals will have the appropriate information they need to care for people in the best and most secure format possible. This project is a national exemplar and we will be sharing our success with other Councils and NHS colleagues to promote best practice.”

Ninety-two per cent of staff say the MIG from Healthcare Gateway has helped them to improve overall patient care, an independent benefit analysis conducted by NHIS direct with clinical staff using the MIG has found.

GP Dr Anita Bloor, Senior Medical Advisor at out-of-hours and urgent primary care provider NEMS, said: “Access to live primary care records via the MIG gives our doctors and other out-of-hours clinical staff the vital information they need to make safe, effective and appropriate decisions.”

“We now look at the patient’s GP record in almost every case we manage and, if it’s not available for some reason, it’s like having one arm tied behind your back. Immediate access to GP records can also prevent unnecessary hospital admissions, which is particularly important with frail elderly people.”

The portal is being used across Nottinghamshire to provide real-time information from 143 GP practices across 6 CCGs available. Andy Evans, Programme Director at Connected Nottinghamshire said “We wanted to improve health and social care data sharing. After extensive research, we chose the MIG in 2014 as a low cost, high value tactical solution that we could deploy easily. We can summarise complex data from any source and share it widely to other systems via the MIG very quickly. We are now making information from over 90% of GP patient records available, compared to 15% in 2015.”

The system is sharing information such as medications, medical histories, datasets around end of life care and treatment, patient preferences and core GP system information.

Its now providing access to data sets for out-of-hours services, multiple hospitals, 111 staff, GPs, community carers, mental health workers and others. Leanne Alder, Research Radiographer at Nottingham University Hospital said “The MIG saves time otherwise spent contacting GPs and other trusts to obtain information. We can more easily check which other medications patients are taking for any potential drug interactions and it also stops patients getting annoyed that GPs and hospitals don’t talk to each other.”

Bedfordshire CCG is to introduce new mobile heart monitors with an aim to help prevent strokes.

The mobile heart monitor technology helps patients take a quick ECG reading thats measures electrical activity of the heart. The device is able to identify a number of heart rate abnormalities including atrial fibrillation.

Dr Linus Onah, BCCG clinical lead, said: “Many people in our region could be unaware they have irregular heart rhythms and are at risk of having a stroke.”

“These mobile ECG devices are easy-to-use, require no gels or wires and can check your heart rhythm in less than a minute. They will play an important role in the early detection of atrial fibrillation, helping to prevent stroke and save lives.”

The CCG has commissioned the technology from AliveCor. It means patients can quickly place their index and middle fingers of each hand on portable finger plates and in 30 seconds an ECG reading is transmitted wirelessly to the AliveCor app on an iPad.

The Eastern Academic Health Science Network conducted a pilot study of the mobile heart monitors in Bedford and found that for every 25 patients who receive treatment after being detected with AF, one stroke event over a period of 18 months is avoided.

The technology will also be used by GPs, nurses and health assistant during consultations and as part of the NHS health check programme.

Health Navigator, a previous DigitalHealth.London accelerator has announced a year of exceptional growth, with revenues up 250% and an increase of 30% in staff.

The company now supports 7 NHS trusts and 9 CCGS, and has recently been announced as a Finalist in the HTN Awards with its partnership with Vale of York CCG to predict and prevent avoidable urgent care, using AI, patient empowerment and nurse-led coaching.

Dr Joachim Werr, founder and CEO, Health Navigator “Often digital health and analytics solutions focus only on problem identification, quantification or prediction. Combining the power of AI with an evidence-based intervention capable of impacting population health is what third-generation healthcare is all about. That’s exactly what we are doing.”

“25-35% of urgent and emergency care is avoidable, costing the NHS some £6bn annually. The business focuses on the 1% of most vulnerable patients that account for up to 35% of A&E attendances and 50% of unplanned bed days.”

“Delivered by registered nurses and healthcare professionals, the company’s Proactive Health Coaching rapidly stabilises patients with complex conditions and empowers them to take control. The result is increased quality of life and reduced need for unplanned hospital care.”

Having completed a 12,000 patient randomised controlled trial (RCT) in Sweden, Health Navigator established itself in the UK in 2015. The first goal of the business was to replicate its evidence in an NHS environment, and so entered into a 3,000 NIHR-registered patient RCT with the Nuffield Trust.

A couple of years on, the evidence of benefits across patient reported outcomes, urgent care reduction, cost savings, and even mortality, is strong. Results demonstrate improved survival, an up to 59% reduction in unplanned admissions, 52% reduction in A&E attendances, up to 33% improvement in patient activation and cost savings that can reach some £2,900 per patient per year.

As the company enters profitability this year, all growth remains organic with no external investment. The company also thanked Digital Health.London Accelerator for a year of productive collaboration.

All GP practices in Portsmouth CCG are now live with the latest upgrade as part of the Electronic Prescription Services (EPS).

The latest upgrade, Phase 4, has been piloted by the CCG and now 100% of practices are enabled for prescriptions to be sent electronically.

The Professional Records Standards Body has published a new standard to outline the core information to be shared in a person’s care record.

Following a consultation process with over 1,500 professionals and organisations the new standard determines the vital information about a person that should be shared between health and care systems so care is safer, timely and more effective.

The government has highlighted recently that interoperability and sharing information is a key priority to ensure the right care and information about people is safely shared between different systems across health and social care.

PRSB worked with NHS England to understand the information that needs to be shared and has produced a core information standard to define exactly what should be shared.

The standard includes a wide range of information from different services, including the GP, hospitals, social care and mental health services among others. It will incorporate an ‘about me’ section, which outlines what people want professionals to know about their care, as well as other crucial information, such as allergies, medications and alerts. Once implemented, it will mean that everyone involved in a person’s care, including the patient, carer and guardian, will have access to relevant data. As a result, people won’t have to repeat their history and services can deliver tailored, personalised care. It will be piloted in regions across the UK, as part of the Local Health and Care Record programme.

90% of participants in the research agreed that joining up digital health and care information will lead to better, safer and more personalised services across the UK. Around 80% of respondents also supported personalising care through use of an ‘about me’ section in their care records.

The first regions that have been selected to pilot the standard are Greater Manchester, Thames Valley and Surrey, Wessex, One London and Yorkshire and Humber.

Professor Maureen Baker, PRSB chair, said “As a GP, providing safe, high quality care for my patients depends on having the latest information from colleagues in hospital and the community about my patients’ care. That is why I am so pleased that PRSB has produced the core information standard and why I am so keen it is in use as soon as possible. Having up-to-date information helps me make better clinical decisions and work more effectively with other services and it helps people stay closer to home with more control of their own health and care.”