New strategy to protect NHS from cyber attacks

The government has unveiled a new strategy intended to protect the NHS from cyber attacks.

The Cyber Security Strategy for Health and Adult Social Care lists five ways to build cyber resilience in health and care by 2030.

The intention is to ensure that services are better protected from cyber threats, securing sensitive information and ensure patients are able to continue to access care.

The strategy includes five ways to minimise the risk of cyber attacks and other cyber security issues, and to improve response and recovery following any incidents across health and social care systems. The five pillars include: identifying the areas of the sector where disruption would cause the greatest harm to patients, such as through sensitive

Data

information being leaked or critical services being unable to function; uniting the sector so it can take advantage of its scale and benefit from national resources and expertise, enabling faster responses and minimising disruption and building on the current culture to ensure leaders are engaged and the cyber workforce is grown and recognised, and relevant cyber basics training is offered to the general workforce. The other two pillars are embedding security into the framework of emerging technology to better protect it against cyber threat and supporting every health and care organisation to minimise the impact and recovery time of a cyber incident.

A full implementation plan is set to be published in the summer.

Health minister Lord Markham said: “We’re harnessing the power of technology to deliver better, safer care to people across the country – but at the same time it’s crucial we’re also bolstering the defences of our health and care services.

“This new strategy will be instrumental to ensure every organisation in health and adult social care is set up to meet the challenges of the future.

“This is an important step to ensure we’re building an NHS which is sustainable and fit for the future, with patients at the centre.”

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Consultation launched on sharing private healthcare data with the NHS

NHS England has launched a consultation on plans to create a single source of healthcare data in England to improve the quality of care for patients.

The consultation is part of the Acute Data Alignment Programme (ADAPt).

The plans would mean that NHS-funded and private healthcare activity data would be available in one place for the first time, in an attempt to provide a more comprehensive insight into the quality of treatment and care across both the NHS and private healthcare settings.

The consultation comes after the Paterson Inquiry, which recommended bringing data on all consultant activity together in the same place. The inquiry followed the conviction of breast cancer surgeon Ian Paterson for performing harmful and unnecessary surgery on

Frameworks

patients across both NHS and private settings.

Pilots have shown that private providers are able to submit admitted patient care data directly to the NHS and that this has a number of benefits, in particular where data on private hospital activity can be linked to information on NHS-funded care. This can provide insights such as the number of emergency readmissions following discharge from a private provider.

The consultation will run until 20 April 2023.

James Austin, director of data strategy and policy at NHS England, said: “NHS data already plays an important role in how we provide high quality patient care and monitor safety reporting systems across the NHS.

“This vision of a single repository of healthcare information, combining NHS and private healthcare, will help provide better insights and lead to improved care and treatment for all patients across both the NHS and private healthcare sectors.

“Working jointly on the ADAPt programme has enabled us to see the benefits of how this might work. We’d now like to invite healthcare professionals, patient groups and individuals to share their views by responding to the consultation.”

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New framework for procuring remote patient monitoring solutions

NHS Shared Business Services (NHSSBS) has formally announced the second iteration of its framework agreement, Technology Enabled Care Services 2.

The framework is designed to respond to the need within the NHS and social care sector to free up beds, reduce the backlog of appointments, speed up patient discharge, and reduce the burden on the stretched social care sector.

The framework has been designed with contributions from NHS England (NHSE) Transformation Directorate, local authorities, national technology enabled care (TEC) policy makers like TEC Cymru, as well as industry bodies including the TSA (TEC Services Association).

The announcement comes at a time in which the NHS is grappling with longer hospital waiting times, hospitals being fuller than pre-pandemic and a discharge crisis.

Virtual wards feature as a key part of the recovery plan. There is a plan to scale up capacity from a current 7,000 virtual ward beds to 10,000 this autumn ready for the winter.

The new framework enables GP Practices, hospitals, health centres and emergency services to procure remote clinical monitoring, intelligent activity monitoring, patient controlled personalised healthcare records and virtual ward solutions which can support health and care professionals to deliver effective and efficient clinical care for patients.

Adam Nickerson, Head of CategoryDigital & IT Procurement Frameworks, at

NHS SBS commented: “The coronavirus pandemic added to waiting lists and the knock-on effects of a lack of beds in the NHS and social care sector. As such, NHSE is looking to deploy virtual ward beds to scale up capacity from 7,000 to 10,000 this autumn, ready for next winter.

“As part of this ambition, ICSs are expected to deliver virtual ward capacity equivalent to 40-50 virtual ward beds per 100,000 people by December 2023, with virtual ward services developed across ICSs and provider collaboratives, rather than individual institutions. In so doing, improving health and integrated care across the health and care system.

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