NHS Applications

The NHS CFH programme (Connecting for Health) is the UK Health Service's multi-billion pound national programme for IT.

Several of the key elements of this ambitious programme are already in place, including

• Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions between GPs and the patient's choice of pharmacy;
• N3; a new broadband infrastructure;
• PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications Systems) for the distribution of medical images such as X-rays and scans.
• Spine, a core data storage and messaging system to be used for storage of patient information, eventually destined to grow into a full electronic patient record;
• Contact, a secure email and directory service for the whole NHS.

Billions of pounds are being spent and a huge amount of new technology has been procured, with existing systems transformed, consolidated and standardised through the IT programme.

Adding mobile and wireless technology to the mix and it is easy to see the emergence of a communications and reference system of immense power and flexibility.

With secure access through the Internet to intranet and NHS email from any fixed or mobile point or device (extendable to mobile personal devices such as BlackBerrys, PDAs, wireless LANs and tablet PCs) information is being released from a constrained storage to a demand-access solution that is flexible and location-independent, and delievered wherever needed.

The potential for mobile working will free staff to do more of what they need to do, when they want to do it. Reports can be filed on the move, without needing to return to a fixed workstation.

In many ways what is being created is a method of information treatment that is more analagous to water treatment - information flows down from the central water tower (databases and information servers) to anywhere it is needed - and should be as easy to use as as turning a tap.