myGP reaches 1.5m active users

Mental health

St Andrew’s to overhaul services after CQC inspection

Mental health provider St Andrew’s Healthcare, which had “repeated and systemic failings” in its governance, is to overhaul its current services and move out of its facility at Fitzroy House in Northampton, transferring to a smaller building, while reducing the number of young people it supports from 99 to 30. The overhaul follows an inspection by the Care Quality Commission, which put the charity into special measures. CQC inspectors visited the charity on 23 and 24 October and found the use of physical restraint had increased, despite plans to reduce it. Inspectors also found staff were not always forthcoming in raising concerns without fear of reprisal.

In the report which followed the inspection, CQC told St Andrews Healthcare that if its service fails to improve within six months, it will close it down.

Chief executive of St Andrew’s Healthcare, Katie Fisher, said: “We have already taken disciplinary action against the small number of staff members in our child and adolescent mental health service whose treatment of our patients is completely unacceptable. There is no excuse for this behaviour, and for this we are sorry. We know we need to make significant changes, and quickly.”

The Priory Group opens new wellbeing centre in Bristol

The Priory Group has opened a walk-in Wellbeing Centre in Bristol to meet increasing demand for mental health services in South West England.

The Wellbeing Centre, located in Aztec West Business Park, close to Priory’s Bristol Hospital, is fully regulated by the Care Quality Commission.

The centre is staffed by consultant psychiatrists, psychologists and a range of individual, group and family therapists, providing therapy and treatments for a broad range of mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, stress, eating disorders, addiction, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as well as bereavement and grief.

It is hoped the new service will help to ease the pressures on local A&E teams, after University Hospitals Bristol NHS Trust reported that visits to emergency departments for mental health issues in the Bristol area had increased by 138% on the previous year, rising from 1095 to 2610.

This opening of the Bristol Wellbeing Centre is the latest in a series of Wellbeing Centres launched by the Priory Group, in Birmingham, Southampton, Canterbury, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Greater Manchester, Oxford and London (Fenchurch Street and Harley Street).

Mandy Ryan, manager of the Bristol Wellbeing Centre, said: “At the start of this new decade, our team is so proud to be opening this much needed clinic to allow swift assessment and treatment of people in Bristol and across the South West, where there has been a gap for patients for some time. She added: “Our ethos has always been to promote the importance of early assessment and diagnosis. We hope that by offering a friendly and discreet service that is accessible and convenient, we can play an active part in supporting all our patients towards a better quality of life and long-term recovery.”

Leanne Hayward, consultant psychiatrist at Priory’s Bristol Hospital and the Wellbeing Centre, commented: “The Wellbeing Centre will meet much needed demand in the Bristol area. Those with mental health conditions need to receive the right treatment as soon as possible, and at the wellbeing centre we offer the swift and specialist support patients require. I look forward to working with patients at this excellent new service.”

Digital and medtech

myGP reaches 1.5m active users

Healthcare app myGP has seen a 50% increase in active users in the past six months, with 1.5 million people across the country now using it to manage their health.

myGP, developed by iPLATO Healthcare, is NHS Assured and offers users and their dependents appointment booking at their registered GP surgery, medical record access and repeat prescription ordering, medication reminders, health tracking, e-referrals and a pharmacy service finder.

myGP directly codes into a practice’s clinical system meaning that all actions taken on the app are instantaneously picked up by the practice’s system. According to myGP, this provides time and cost savings for practices and also gives patients the ability to cancel appointments online, freeing up appointments for those who need them most.

Due to its large user base, myGP was recently asked by the NHS to assist in communicating guidance for the current outbreak of Coronavirus. myGP chief executive Tobias Alpsten said: “This is a fantastic achievement by our supporters within the NHS and our team. It means that we continue to meet more of our user’s healthcare needs at their own registered GP surgery. The real winners are myGP members who previously had limited options for accessing online services and we hope that by using myGP their lives will be made simpler and more convenient.”

He added: “We are continuously listening to app users and practices about features that would help them

in their day-to-day lives and continue to build these into the myGP app. We regularly get fantastic feedback from both practices and patients and our local account managers continue to work directly with practices to help them to help patients to adopt digital tools. It’s great to see that this is working.”

Digital and medtech

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust to roll out Netcall’s Patient Hub

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust (UHS) is to roll out Netcall’s Patient Hub, across all its departments from April.

The Patient Hub, a browserbased portal, will enable patients to confirm, rebook or cancel hospital appointments online from anywhere, on any device and at any time.

Those who have not logged in to read the digital version in time, or those who opt-out of the hub, will still receive postal notifications to maximise appointment attendance and cut down costly “did not attends”. The hub also supports patients who need reading or visual impairment tools. The Patient Hub allows clinicians to receive a screen-pop of all the relevant patient data from the start of a patient’s call – meaning that patients don’t need to repeat information. The screen-pop functionality works even when the patient decides to call directly into the booking centre with a query. Digitalising appointment letters through the Patient Hub also boost’s the NHS’s paper-free agenda and reduces postage costs. In the future, UHS aims to further integrate the Patient Hub with its clinical portal My Medical Record (MyMedRec), which is designed to help patients with chronic illnesses manage their care. Once the two portals are connected, patients will be able to review their appointments on the Patient Hub and then move to MyMedRec to check-in or upload clinical information ahead of time. Ian Brewer, head of information technology at UHS, said: “Netcall has been sending our outpatient appointment reminders by telephone and text for a few years. When we started to look for a solution to send digital letters to patients, Netcall’s Patient Hub seemed a natural fit. The additional functionality we have been able to deploy as part of the programme, including confirming or cancelling appointments, as well as additional call handling facilities in our busy patient services centre, has made it a great choice.”

Mark Holmes, chief sales officer at Netcall, added: “We are very pleased to continue our work supporting this innovative global digital exemplar. University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust has a clear vision and strategy for a future that is centred around excellence and patient experience. The experience that both the UHS and Netcall teams bring to the Patient Hub implementation, working alongside MyMedRec, means that the future looks very exciting.”

Qlik partners with Cheshire care providers

Qlik, a data analytics company, has partnered with West Cheshire Clinical Consulting Group, an NHS trust, to develop predictive tools, which enable front line staff to identify and support patients at highest risk of health deterioration. The initiative is in line with the NHS’s Long Term Plan, Population Health – an approach aimed at improving physical and mental health in the UK.

Using Qlik enables healthcare staff to spot quickly patients whose conditions are not being managed in the best way. Qlik’s implementation has been overseen by the newly created business intelligence board, created as part of a drive by Cheshire West Integrated Care Partnership.

Teresa Strefford, executive clinical director at Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “With the CCGs across Cheshire merging in April 2020, we’ve been given an exciting opportunity to revisit best practice within a new single Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group.” She added: “Implementing Qlik technology to create powerful risk stratification systems has furnished us with a powerful tool to quickly identify the patients at highest risk. We look forward to equipping GP practices across Cheshire with this new technology – through proactive care and identification of the right patients, both clinical teams and patients will see a positive impact.” Sean Price, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, director of industry solutions, public sector and healthcare at Qlik, added: “We are proud to be helping Cheshire health and care professionals understand population health from both a strategic and tactical level. The pressure on our healthcare system continues to increase with growing demand and risk, combined with acute resource restraints. Now, more than ever, innovative leaders need to realise that data analytics provides the key to transforming ways of working to sustain and improve the services delivered to the public.”

Clarity Informatics to expand its support tool globally

IT healthcare solutions provider Clarity Informatics is to expand the reach of its clinical decision support tool, Prodigy.

As part of a global initiative, Clarity Informatics will introduce the Prodigy service to primary and first contact healthcare professionals, particularly those working in English-speaking countries, which have similar healthcare systems.

Prodigy is designed to provide GPs, GP registrars, paramedics, nurses, and pharmacists with evidence-based clinical guidelines, helping them to treat common conditions and symptoms.

Prodigy forms the clinical content of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Clinical Knowledge Summaries (CKS) service and is used by more than 400,000 clinicians every month.

More than half of the NHS clinical workforce relies on clinical information and guidance

authored by Clarity Informatics – and Prodigy’s clinical content is continually monitored, reviewed, and new topics introduced each year. Though it is expanding globally, the Prodigy tool will remain free of charge to medical professionals in the UK, as part of NICE’s CKS.

Tim Sewart, chief executive of Clarity Informatics, said: “We can see significant potential to expand the reach of Prodigy globally and create opportunities for healthcare professionals in other markets to benefit from rigorously reviewed clinical guidance available to them at the point of care.”

Digital and medtech

Patchwork and Wagestream deal allows clinicians to access wages

Health technology company Patchwork has partnered with income streaming company Wagestream to enable its clinicians to track and access their wages.

The partnership will allow NHS clinicians to check shifts through the Patchwork app to track and access their earned wages when they need it, without having to wait for payday.

Incorporating Wagestream into the Patchwork platform means clinicians can choose when and how often they get paid; keep track of their earnings in real-time, and access budgeting tools.

Patchwork also hopes that this added feature encourages more clinicians to book shifts directly through their hospital bank, thereby saving the NHS millions in agency fees.

Patchwork is already used across 30 NHS hospitals by more than 10,000 clinicians and the platform has facilitated one million shift hours since its launch.

Anas Nader, chief executive of Patchwork (right), said: “Adding the power of Wagestream to our platform is another step towards creating a more flexible, streamlined, and dynamic working reality for NHS clinicians. We are seeing increasing numbers of healthcare workers leave the NHS citing poor work-life balance. Our technology is trying to redress this trend while removing the traditional financial burdens that temporary staffing can place on trusts.

He added: “Offering temporary health workers financial stability is incredibly important and a crucial move towards parity of experience between contracted and flexible staff.”

Peter Briffett, chief executive of Wagestream (left), said: “The opportunity to partner with Patchwork enables us to continue to deliver our mission of providing financial flexibility and giving

clinicians within the NHS greater control; connecting flexible pay is an important pillar in the wider move towards flexible work. The financial wellbeing of NHS staff is of paramount importance and through this partnership we see the opportunity to increase financial stability and freedom for healthcare clinicians.”

Forescout Technologies and Medigate team up for medical security

Internet security firm Forescout Technologies has partnered with medical device security firm Medigate to help healthcare organisations secure all their devices.

Medigate enables IT, information security, biomedical and clinical engineering teams to identify, monitor and secure every medical device on a clinical network.

The joint offering will enable clinicians and healthcare staff to identify and classify all connected medical devices and any company-owned information on their network, while minimising disruption. And customers will be able to design and implement segmentation and control access to their clinical network.

Pedro Abreu, chief product and strategy officer at Forescout, said: “Connected medical devices represent a fast-growing threat attack vector and the lack of device manufacturer standardisation and interoperability has created a significant problem for clinical care network operations. The combination of Medigate’s deep knowledge of medical devices and the healthcare industry, with Forescout’s breadth of device intelligence adds a new level of cohesive device insight, expertise and security for the healthcare industry.” Jonathan Langer, co-founder and chief executive of Medigate, added: “The Medigate and Forescout partnership and integration provide healthcare organisations with rich contextual visibility into their IT and clinical networks, as well as sophisticated network analysis to detect threats and implement clinically-driven policies. These actionable insights will, in turn, reduce risk and improve patient safety.”