§ Mr. BarronTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has undertaken of the benefits for emergency and immediate notifications of the use of a uniform electronic messaging system at all levels of the NHS. [18787]
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October 1995 February 1996 Number Per cent. Number Per cent. Health authorities 2 3 2 1 Family health services authorities 4 5 29 13 Hospital trusts 20 27 32 14
§ Mr. HoramA system for the electronic transmission of emergency communications between the Chief Medical Officer and the national health service is currently being piloted in Kent and Birmingham. The benefits to the NHS will be assessed once the pilot is complete.
§ Mr. BarronTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if the BT Syntegra system became generally available within the NHS in October 1995. [18791]
§ Mr. HoramAfter extensive testing in several health authorities, involving a range of users in the national health service, Syntegra launched its message handling service for use in the NHS at the Exchanging Healthcare Information conference in October 1995. So far, 222 connections have been made and this number is expected to grow over time.
§ Mr. BarronTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if trusts are obliged to have regard to the contract awarded by his Department by competitive procurement to BT Syntegra in 1994 when making decisions concerning message handling services. [18789]
§ Mr. HoramThe use of Syntegra's message handling service is not mandatory in the national health service. Each NHS organisation will decide on the basis of value for money whether or not to use the Syntegra message handling service. The large corporate discounts obtained from Syntegra mean that alternatives are unlikely to be cost effective.
§ Mr. BarronTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his current estimate of the cost savings to the NHS accruing from use of Syntegra's message handling service. [18793]
§ Mr. HoramIt is too early to make realistic estimates of cost savings to the national health service due to the use of Syntegra's message handling service.
§ Mr. BarronTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the current number, in actual and percentage terms, of subscribers to the BT Syntegra NHS message handling system; and what was the number in October 1995 among(a) health authorities, (b) family health services authorities (c) hospital trusts, (d) other trusts and (e) general practitioners. [18792]
§ Mr. HoramThe number of subscribers to Syntegra's message handling system are as follows:
October 1995 February 1996 Organisationally based systems—e.g. health authorities and trusts where there would be many individual users 44 86 Personal systems—e.g. a GP. 29 136 Numbers of users by national health service units, also expressed as a percentage of the total subscribers, are as follows:
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October 1995 February 1996 Number Per cent. Number Per cent. Other trusts 2 3 4 2 General practitioners 0 0 20 9 Others—e.g. Department of Health, NHS Executive 45 62 135 61
§ Mr. BarronTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance he has issued to trusts regarding the take-up and use of each of the message handling services available within the NHS. [18790]
§ Mr. HoramGeneral guidance about NHS-wide networking services, which includes message handling, has been issued to all NHS organisations, including NHS trusts. It is planned that this guidance will be supplemented by Syntegra's marketing activities, and other networking suppliers wishing to sell their services to the NHS.