How much money does digital technolog... - NHS England: A Ca...
NHS England: A Call to Action
How much money does digital technology and services like NHS Choices save the NHS? Is it worth the taxpayer outlay?
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IMHO two very different things: The value of NHS Choices is becoming more and more obvious just from the numbers and growth and the high standard of patient-centred information. It does what it says on the tin. It's much better than WebMD/NIH and should be targeted to be the best, most trustworthy health site on the web (FYI - I'm not associated with Choices)
On the other hand the blocker on much of the digital innovation in the NHS seems to be on the adoption by 'real' people. When you scratch beneath the surface there are usually very few users however good the demos may look.
Thanks Jaarlsen. Sounds to me like Choices would be the natural parent to nurture any NHS digital babies.
My wife and I found the NHS Choices Pregnancy & Baby Guide to be invaluable while expecting the birth of our son last year. There are many other places to get similar information, but the knowledge that we were getting NHS-approved advice was very reassuring to us.
What exactly is the outlay? We've (hopefully) learnt the £12billion lesson of unfettered white elephant IT budgets, but I've no idea how much NHS Choices costs to run for example.
I'm not sure how much they spend, but given the culture and legacy, I'd venture a guess it isn't spent very efficiently. As much as the public doesn't want a privatised NHS, to innovate in spheres that are outside its core competency, perhaps it should setup a ventures arm or similar that invests in and nurtures products that could benefit patients. For a £100bn pa organisation, £100m of investment over 3-5 years is a drop in the ocean that could yield big advances for patient care...
Agree - but the problem with public sector venture arms is they seem to fall between two stools and create a whole new layer of slightly suspect decision-making. The ideal situation might be that 'real' VCs came in with public sector and matched the funding (or something along those lines).
Given the ongoing failure of services such as 111, it seems the digital approach is the way to go. However, a stronger remit to ensure that digital offerings aren't replicating information that is available from reputable sources elsewhere is needed
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