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NICE recommends NHS collects real-world evidence on devices that monitor people with Parkinson’s disease

Five promising technologies that could help improve symptoms and quality of life for people with Parkinson’s disease have been conditionally recommended by NICE.

The wearable devices have sensors that monitor the symptoms of people with Parkinson’s disease while they go about their day-to-day life. This information may more accurately record a person’s symptoms than a clinical assessment during in-person appointments and help inform medication decisions and follow up treatment such as physiotherapy.

Parkinson's disease is an incurable condition that affects the brain, resulting in progressive loss of coordination and movement problems. It is caused by loss of the cells in the brain that are responsible for producing dopamine, which helps to control and coordinate body movements.

Mark Chapman, interim director of Medical Technology at NICE, said: “Providing wearable technology to people with Parkinson’s disease could have a transformative effect on their care and lead to changes in their treatment taking place more quickly.

“However there is uncertainty in the evidence at present on these five promising technologies which is why the committee has conditionally recommended their use by the NHS while data is collected to eliminate these evidence gaps.

“We are committed to balancing the best care with value for money, delivering both for individuals and society as a whole, while at the same time driving innovation into the hands of health and care professionals to enable best practice.”

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Source: NICE, 27 October 2022

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NICE recommends digital platforms to help manage asthma

NICE has published draft guidance recommending eight digital platforms to help people with asthma better manage their condition.

The eight recommended digital technologies are: Asthmahub, Asthmahub for parents, AsthmaTuner, Digital Health Passport, Luscii, myAsthma, RDMP (Respiratory Disease Management Platform) and Smart Asthma.

They have been recommended for use in the NHS while further evidence is collected over the next three years, the draft guidance states.

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Source: Digital Health, 7 January 2026.

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NICE launches ambitious strategy to provide quicker access to new treatments and innovations

NICE will speed up patients’ access to the latest and most effective treatments, and dynamic guideline recommendations will be put in the hands of healthcare professionals more quickly under plans unveiled by NICE in its 5-year strategy launched on Monday (19 April 2021).

NICE will transform key elements of its approach to ensure efficiency and speed while maintaining robust, trusted methods.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reaffirmed the need to place science and evidence at the heart of health and care decision making and improve outcomes for all patients across the healthcare system.

Ensuring the organisation is more proactive and engaged with the life science industry earlier in the innovation pathway will allow patients to access new treatments faster.

Professor Stephen Powis, NHS England medical director, said: “Since its creation the NHS has always adapted quickly in response to new innovations, from world first transplants to more recently new cancer drugs and treatments during the pandemic which are enabling patients to get the care they need from the comfort of their own home."

“At the heart of the NHS Long Term Plan is a commitment to rollout the latest treatments to patients as soon as they are approved and so we welcome NICE’s new strategy to speed up approvals of the latest and most effective treatments.”

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Source: NICE, 19 April 2021

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NICE guidance for GPs to regularly review self-harming patients finalised

NICE has rubber-stamped guidance on self-harm that said GPs should ‘regularly review’ patients and offer a ‘specific CBT intervention’.

The guidance is the first to be drawn up in 11 years and emphasises the importance of referring patients to specialist mental health services but stresses that, for patients who are treated in primary care, continuity is crucial.

The final guideline mirrors the draft guidance in advising that self-harming patients, when treated in primary care, must receive:

  • regular follow-up appointments;
  • regular reviews of self-harm behaviour;
  • a regular medicines review.

GPs must also provide care for co-existing mental health issues, including referral to mental health services where appropriate, as well as information, social care, voluntary and non-NHS sector support and self-help resources, it said.

The guidance said that referring people to mental health services would ‘ensure people are in the most appropriate setting’.

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Source: Pulse, 8 September 2022

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NICE expands HealthTech evaluations for NHS patients

NICE will apply the same rigorous standards to evaluate medical devices, diagnostics and digital tools that currently assess new medicines.

The new approach puts health technologies on equal footing with medicines, ensuring innovations like wearable diabetes monitors and AI diagnostics reach patients faster and more consistently across the NHS.

The expanded programme addresses longstanding inequalities in technology adoption across different NHS regions. Technologies meeting NICE's standards will receive strong recommendations for NHS-wide implementation, supported by clear guidance on value and effectiveness.

The initiative forms part of the government's broader Life Sciences Sector Plan, positioning the NHS as a major customer for one of Britain's fastest-growing industries. It supports the NHS 10 Year Health Plan's vision for using innovation to drive healthcare reform and delivers the expansion of NICE’s technology appraisal process to cover devices, diagnostics and digital products.

Health technologies are reshaping healthcare, opening up new ways to care for patients, diagnose conditions earlier, and help people stay healthier for longer. These changes mean that more devices, diagnostics and digital tools will be used to address pressing issues across the NHS, such as long waiting lists.

Dr Sarah Byron, deputy director for HealthTech at NICE, said: "NICE is currently consulting on updated evaluation methods through October 2025, working with industry and healthcare partners to refine the assessment framework. The programme will initially focus on high-impact technologies before expanding coverage in subsequent years".

"This systematic change builds on NICE's founding mission to end postcode lottery access to treatments, extending that principle to the rapidly evolving healthtech sector including AI and digital health."

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Source: WiredGov, 2 October 2025

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NICE advises GPs to offer home tests to all patients with bowel cancer symptoms to reduce waiting lists

GPs should offer all patients presenting with signs of colorectal cancer a faecal immunochemical test (FIT) to reduce the waiting times for a colonoscopy, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended in draft guidance.

The current NICE recommendation is to offer FIT to people presenting to primary care with low risk symptoms suggestive of colorectal cancer, while people with high risk symptoms should be immediately referred to the suspected cancer pathway. However, patients often have lengthy waiting times for colonoscopy because of limited capacity.

NICE estimates that the recommendation should lead to 50% fewer referrals for urgent colonoscopies being made by GPs each year.

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Source: BMJ, 5 July 2023

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NI’s £800m use of prescribed medicines higher than anywhere else in UK

Northern Ireland’s chief pharmaceutical officer has said that the use of prescribed medicines and the associated costs remains too high, exceeding £800m a year.

In a blog to reflect on the 75th anniversary of the NHS, Professor Cathy Harrison added that medicine costs in NI are the second largest single investment made in the health service, after staff.

“The average number of prescription items a year is 21 per person, at a cost of £227. This cost is the highest in the UK and the volume of prescription items is still rising each year,” she said.

“There is an uncomfortable truth that manifests in the prescribing data for medicines. In Northern Ireland, we continue to use more of almost every type of medicine than other parts of the UK.

“That includes more antibiotics, more painkillers, more baby milks, more nutritional supplements, even more oxygen.”

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Source: Belfast Telegraph, 27 June 2023

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NI patients suing GPs over hospital waiting time targets

Northern Ireland GPs are being hit with bills of thousands of pounds as they are sued by patients coming to harm on hospital waiting lists.

Family doctors are being taken to court by their patients as a result of spiralling hospital waiting lists — even though GPs are not responsible for the crisis.

It comes as official figures show 14% of the population — around one in seven — had been waiting longer than a year for an outpatient or inpatient appointment at the end of March.

The growing risk to patient safety, as the health service struggles to cope with demand, and the potential for primary care doctors to be held accountable have been blamed as reasons for the rising number of GPs who are handing back their contracts.

Sixteen GP surgeries in Northern Ireland have handed back contracts in recent months, bringing the key NHS service closer to collapse.

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Source: Belfast Telegraph, 30 May 2023

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NI Health: Quarter of cancer patients diagnosed in A&E

More than a quarter of cancers in Northern Ireland are being diagnosed in hospital emergency departments, according to Cancer Research UK.

The study, published in The Lancet Oncology, was supported by NI Cancer Registry at Queen's University Belfast.

It looked at 857,068 cases diagnosed between 2012 and 2017 in six countries including Australia, Denmark and the UK.

Clare Crossey, 35, from Lurgan was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia in February 2018 after being admitted to hospital as an emergency.

The 35-year-old mother-of-two, who is a domiciliary care assistant, suddenly became very unwell with symptoms including tiredness and bruising.

She told BBC News NI she had contacted her local health centre, where a GP told her she was being overly anxious.

Ms Crossey said she had panicked, fearing she may have leukaemia after looking up her symptoms on the internet.

"I had a feeling that things weren't right," she said.

"The doctor did not agree with my suspicions as they passed me the number of the Samaritans helpline, a prescription for beta blockers and told me to wait a week for blood tests."

She said: "I went to Craigavon's A&E, they did blood tests and within hours a consultant broke the news to me that I might have leukaemia."

The medical team told her that had she waited any longer to come to the emergency department, she could have died, said Ms Crossley.

Barbara Roulston, from Cancer Research UK, said the study confirmed too many people were only being diagnosed with cancer once their health had deteriorated to a point when they needed to go to their emergency department.

"We need to reduce the number of cancer diagnoses that are happening in this way," she said.

"That means renewed focus on early diagnosis and prevention through things like better awareness of symptoms, better uptake of screening programs and the way to do that is to get funding for the cancer strategy which was published recently.

"If we don't, the risk is that we will start to see cancer survival going backwards."

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Source: BBC News, 7 April 222

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NI Health: Cancer treatment waits show 'system is failing'

The number of people in Northern Ireland waiting more than a month to start cancer treatment is five times higher than a decade ago.

Macmillan Cancer research collated between April 2011 and March 2012 said on average 18 people each month waited more than a month for treatment.

By March 2022 that monthly figure had increased to 92 people - or by more than 400%.

Macmillan Cancer said the jump revealed a system that was "failing" patients.

Sarah Christie, Macmillan policy and public affairs manager, told BBC News NI that the figures revealed a "dark insight into a healthcare system that is failing time and again to meet the needs of people living with cancer".

Ms Christie said: "People have a right to be frustrated. They deserve access to care at the right time.

"We need a government in place so that change can happen and, crucially, that the three-year budget that had been planned before the executive collapsed can be signed off.

"It is impossible to deliver transformation on short-term budget."

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Source: BBC News, 29 September 2022

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NI health campaigners say 'enough is enough'

Former patients and families of those affected by some of Northern Ireland's worst health scandals have called for accountability at every level of the health service.

The collective of campaigners gathered at Stormont in protest on Saturday.

They have demanded change, saying "enough is enough".

They included those affected by systemic failures identified in neurology, urology, care homes and hyponatraemia.

Danielle O'Neill, a former patient of the neurologist Dr Michael Watt, whose practice led to Northern Ireland's largest patient recall, was among them.

"It's important for us to stand here today as a collective with all of the other scandals to show that we demand an individual duty of candour," she said.

"We demand accountability, we demand justice.

"There have been far too many health scandals in our health service."

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Source: BBC News, 4 September 2022

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NI 'needs mother and baby mental health unit'

An appeal to establish a dedicated Mother and Baby Perinatal Mental Health Unit will be delivered to the Nothern Ireland health minister later.

Individual women, charities and other organisations will hand over a public letter urging Robin Swann to act.

Northern Ireland is the only place in the UK which has no dedicated in-patient service for women with serious post-partum mental health issues.

The units admit mothers with their babies so that they can be with them.

About 70 women a year in Northern Ireland are admitted to hospital with post-partum psychosis. The health minister approved some funding for perinatal mental health last year. However, no decision has been made on in-patient services.

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Source: BBC, 10 October 2022

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NHSX: giving patients and staff the technology they need

NHSX has just completed a major review of NHS tech spending. They have agreed to reducing the burden on clinicians and staff, so they can focus on patients; giving people the tools to access information and services directly; ensuring clinical information can be safely accessed, wherever it is needed; aiding the improvement of patient safety across the NHS; and improving NHS productivity with digital technology.

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NHSX to fund and support innovations for 500k people at home

NHSX have revealed that they will fund and support 14 new projects across the country to help half a million people receive care at home using digital technology. This will include remote cardiac rehabilitation services and digital self-management systems, as well as parental support services for families of children with eating disorders.

Tara Donnelly, Chief Digital Officer at NHSX, said: “Through our Digital Health Partnership Award, these organisations will have access to the expertise and support they need to adopt or expand their digital capabilities safely and effectively, allowing many more patients with long term conditions to receive their care from the comfort of their homes rather than always having to attend primary and acute settings.”

In addition to innovation in digital technology, a number of the projects build on existing services to ensure more patients can benefit from remote services.

One of the projects also includes the expansion of secure video services at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, which will make it possible for patients and carers, as well as their doctors, to share seizure videos across their neurology service. Cambridgeshire Community Services are also expanding their remote health monitoring service.

Read the full article here

Source: National Health Executive

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NHSX is working on a contact tracking App

NHSX is working on a contact tracking app to trace the spread of coronavirus through the population.

Contact tracking is already in limited use for people who have tested positive and the discipline has a long history in tuberculosis outbreaks.

In a statement sent to HSJ, Matthew Gould, Chief Executive of NHSX, said : “NHSX are looking at whether app-based solutions might be helpful in tracking and managing coronavirus, and we have assembled expertise from inside and outside the organisation to do this as rapidly as possible.”

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Source: HSJ, 18 March 2020

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NHSE’s improvement teams axed

NHS England’s elective, emergency care and mental health improvement support teams are being axed – and their staff and functions merged into the Getting it Right First Time programme, HSJ has learned.

An internal email from national urgent care director Sarah-Jane Marsh last week said that as part of the NHSE restructure, the improvement functions “will be moving to a single structure and brand under the clinical leadership of Tim Briggs, founder of the GIRFT Programme”.

HSJ understands around 70 people work across the improvement support teams, most of whom are in the emergency care improvement support team (ECIST). NHSE did not confirm a figure, but it said the merger would not result in redundancies.

The move follows what was previously described as a “culture battle” between ECIST’s alleged “performance management”-style approach and GIRFT, which is seen as more collaborative.

Senior emergency care figures told HSJ they hoped the move would see the end of “clipboard performance management”.

Professor Matthew Cooke, a former national clinical director of urgent and emergency care, said: “I can see positives in having one organisation… In my experience, the places that improve are the places that work with you, not beaten up by you. If the clipboard performance management disappeared it would be a great step forward.”

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Source: HSJ, 13 October 2025

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NHSE’s defunding of older people’s programme ‘a source of national shame’

NHS England cut £390m (70 per cent) from its planned budget for improving community care for older people in the past two years, according to information obtained by HSJ.

NHSE originally announced back in 2019 that it would spend £647m between 2020 and 2024 on a big expansion of community-based services for older and frail people. This included faster access to rehab care on discharge, personalised care and support at home, and urgent crisis response.

Funding for the Ageing Well programme, under the NHS long-term plan, was set to be targeted by NHSE for local providers to hire staff and create infrastructure. Its LTP allocations were back-loaded, with £204m in 2022-23 and £343m in 2023-24.

But now, figures released to HSJ under the Freedom of Information Act show the final amounts allocated in those two years were just £77m and £79m respectively — a cut across the two years of £391m (72%).

Geriatrician Professor Martin Vernon, who developed the long-term plan proposals as NHSE national clinical director from 2016 to 2019, told HSJ they should “have assumed even greater priority” after covid; and would have put the NHS “in a much better place”.

But he said: “The fact that these plans were largely defunded and badly implemented must now be a source of national shame. The opportunities have been largely squandered and rather than world-leading on ageing health we are now in many ways trailing…

“This regrettable situation must be rescued urgently with renewed commitment, the right national leadership and laser-sharp focus, to avoid yet more people facing a truly dismal future as they get older.”

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Source: HSJ, 14 October 2024

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NHSE’s ‘model A&E’ delayed after ‘real world value’ questioned

Senior leaders have been drafted in to draw up NHS England’s new blueprint for A&Es, following internal criticism of the highly anticipated guidance.

NHSE has been working on a new plan for accidents and emergencies – titled the “model emergency department” – to outline how they can achieve the “ambitious” targets for four hours performance, as outlined in the medium-term planning guidance.

In October, NHSE had promised the ‘model ED’ blueprint would be published “soon”, but HSJ understands the process has stalled following internal criticism.

HSJ understands Birju Bartoli, chief executive of Northumbria Healthcare Foundation Trust, and Emma Rowland, chief operating officer at Homerton Healthcare FT, are among the senior figures drafted in by NHSE to work on the “model ED” policy.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine is also understood to have privately raised concerns about the “model ED”, including over a lack of any new money for emergency departments.

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Source: HSJ, 15 January 2026

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NHSE’s ‘model A&E’ delayed after ‘real world value’ questioned

Senior leaders have been drafted in to draw up NHS England’s new blueprint for A&Es, following internal criticism of the highly anticipated guidance.

NHSE has been working on a new plan for accidents and emegencies – titled the “model emergency department” – to outline how they can achieve the “ambitious” targets for four hours performance, as outlined in the medium-term planning guidance.

In October, NHSE had promised the ‘model ED’ blueprint would be published “soon”, but HSJ understands the process has stalled following internal criticism.

HSJ understands Birju Bartoli, chief executive of Northumbria Healthcare Foundation Trust, and Emma Rowland, chief operating officer at Homerton Healthcare FT, are among the senior figures drafted in by NHSE to work on the “model ED” policy.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine is also understood to have privately raised concerns about the “model ED”, including over a lack of any new money for emergency departments.

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Source: HSJ, 15 January 2026

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NHSE’s ‘institutionalised’ firing of CEOs contributed to ‘major service failure’

An “institutionalised” and “counterproductive” system of hiring and firing trust leaders was a contributory factor to care failings which caused the death of at least 45 babies an inquiry has concluded. 

The inquiry into maternity care at East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust, chaired by Bill Kirkup, discovered what it described as the latest ”major service failure” in NHS maternity care. It concluded that successive chairs and chief executives were “wrong” to believe the trust had provided adequate care for more than a decade and urged they be held accountable. But he added the churn of senior management had been “wholly counterproductive” for the trust.

His report said: “We have found at chief executive, chair and other levels a pattern of hiring and firing, initiated by NHS England. The practice may never have been an explicit policy, but it has become institutionalised. In response to difficult problems, pressure is placed on a trust’s chair to replace the chief executive, and/or to stand down themself."

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Source: HSJ, 20 October 2022 (paywalled)

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NHSE wrongly dismissed discrimination claim from black nurse, tribunal finds

NHS England has lost an employment tribunal case against a senior black nurse on grounds of race discrimination and whistleblowing, and has been criticised for serious flaws in its own investigations.

A judgement published today found Michelle Cox, a black woman who was an NHS continuing healthcare manager based in NHSE’s North West regional team, was excluded by her manager “at every opportunity”.

The case centres on problems between Ms Cox and her line manager, then regional head of continuing healthcare, which took place from around April 2019 to November 2020.

The tribunal ruled Ms Cox's line manager– who is now an associate director of nursing in the West Yorkshire integrated care system – had created an “intimidating and hostile and humiliating environment” for Ms Cox, which had the purpose and effect of unlawful harassment.

The tribunal also upheld Ms Cox’s complaint of detriment for whistleblowing, including for raising concerns that members of her team were sitting on continuing healthcare “independent review panels”, which she pointed out was a breach of independence and legal obligations.

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Source: HSJ, 22 February 2023

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NHSE warns widely used EPR could pose ‘serious risks to patient safety’

NHS England has issued a national alert to all trusts providing maternity services after faults were discovered in IT software that could pose “potential serious risks to patient safety”.

According to the alert, the Euroking electronic patient record provided by Magentus Software could be displaying incorrect patient information to clinicians.

The Euroking EPR is used in the maternity departments of at least 15 trusts according to information held by HSJ.

These organisations have been asked to “consider if Euroking meets their maternity service’s needs” and to “ensure their local configuration is safe”. Trusts with different maternity EPR providers have also been asked to reassess the clinical safety of their solutions.

The potential “serious risks” relate to a fault in the Euroking EPR which allows new patient information to overwrite previously recorded information, which could lead to “incorrect management of the pregnancy and subsequent harm”.

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Source: HSJ,  8 December 2023

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NHSE warns that AI translation apps could impact patient safety

NHS England has raised concerns that the inappropriate use of AI translation apps in healthcare could cause risks to patient safety. 

The ‘Improvement framework: community language translation and interpreting services’, published by NHSE on 27 May 2025, warns that digital exclusion can prevent the one million people in the UK who do not speak good English from accessing NHS services.

It also highlights “concerns about the appropriate use of AI translation apps that are currently widely used across the NHS” to communicate with patients with limited English.

“While translation apps provide a convenient, familiar and timely means of translation, they can also carry risks, particularly regarding accuracy and the potential impact on patient safety,” the framework says.

NHSE calls on national programme teams to develop a national policy briefing on the ethical and appropriate use of AI in healthcare for translation and interpreting services.

This would include measures to ensure the clinical safety and accuracy of AI outputs, outline when AI tools are suitable and when alternative methods should be prioritised, and specify the appropriate and safe use of AI tools for translation and interpreting.

The framework also recommends that clear guidance is developed across all care settings for recording patients’ language needs in electronic patient records.

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Source: Digital Health, 3 June 2025

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NHSE warns service will have to cut activity unless it gets more funding

NHS England has told the government that the service will have to “slow down” efforts to cut waiting lists without a fresh funding injection, HSJ has learned.

The warning comes with health service officials locked in discussions with ministers about their budget settlement, amid a deteriorating financial picture at local NHS bodies.

One source close to the negotiations said the NHS was overspending significantly and could not afford to keep on doing the same levels of elective activity. They said if the government could not find more money, “the reality is we will have to slow down”.

On top of this, NHSE and the government are currently determining how to deliver Labour’s manifesto commitment to deliver 40,000 extra appointments and procedures a week.

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Source: HSJ, 23 August 2024

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