IT professionals invited to share views on future of NHS IT systems

NHS England is to hold bi-monthly webinars to encourage people to get involved in how technology can meet the current and future needs of patients, staff and citizens.

The next webinar, Spine Futures, is scheduled for Thursday 23 February. The webinar is targeted for those working in IT in health and care who would like to hear about plans for the Spine of the future and share their needs.

Currently, NHS Spine joins together more than 28,000 healthcare IT systems and sends over 47 million messages a day, allowing messages to be shared securely through services like the Electronic Prescription Service, Summary Care Record and the e-Referral Service.

Work has been ongoing since April 2022 to develop a new platform to modernise NHS Spine over the next two to three years. The programme plans to make use of modern technologies to create a cloud-based Spine of the future.

Stephen Koch, executive director for platforms at NHS England, said: “We want the Spine of the future to make the best use of modern technologies and open standards to ensure it meets the needs of NHS users for many years to come.  

“That's why we're actively engaging the health and care system with the development of the Spine Futures programme.

“Last year’s migration of the MESH service to the cloud was a massive achievement for the teams involved and a significant first step in our Spine Futures programme.

“We’re asking colleagues working in health and care to tell us what they need from the Spine of the future as we take the next steps of our journey to transform IT in health and social care.”

 

Image by Nick from Pixabay