Report finds ‘profound failings’ in Scottish NHS IT systems

A Scottish Government committee has found that the “profound failings” of IT systems are the biggest problem facing a medicine-prescribing service that does not sufficiently focus on patients.

A report from the members of Scottish Parliament on the Health and Sport Committee describes a medicines system “burdened by market forces, public sector administrative bureaucracy and under resourcing, inconsistent leadership and a lack of comprehensive, strategic thinking and imagination, allied to an almost complete absence of useable data”.

The committee particularly criticised the failure of the NHS to introduce appropriate IT systems.

“We are extremely disappointed that once again all roads lead to the dismal failure of the NHS in Scotland to implement comprehensive IT systems which maximise the use of patient data to provide a better service,” the report says.

Committee members are calling for an overhaul of the system to allow for collection and analysis of data that would ensure the best possible outcomes for patients and cost savings for the NHS.

MSPs found a “lack of care” to understand patients’ experience of taking medicines and a lack of follow up to ensure that medicines were effective or even being used.

Prescribers were “instinctively reaching for the prescription pad” and not taking the time to discuss medicines with patients, nor were the principals of realistic medicine, in which patients and clinicians share decision making about their care, being followed.

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Source: Public Technology.net, 1 July 2020