NHS must change with the times & embrace technology if it is to survive
Tech can help NHS get fit for purpose
HEALTH Secretary Wes Streeting puts NHS reform in a nutshell.
Unless the health service urgently ups its game, it will stagnate like Woolworths, another much-loved national institution that disastrously failed to change with the times.
To survive, the health service needs the business savvy and modern thinking of the most successful 21st Century firms.
Thirty million of us have the NHS app on our phones.
So why isn’t it being effectively used to slash the 7.6million case backlog?
It is madness that millions of patients still wait for a snail mail appointment letter, only to miss it and have to wait for another to be sent, costing the NHS a fortune.
Giving patients more choice on where and when to get treatment then updating them with results on the same phone app seems a step in the right direction.
Even better if this saves the NHS billions of pounds and massively boosts efficiency.
But even improved technology may not suit many older patients and it must not become an excuse to avoid rooting out deeply ingrained waste elsewhere.
To work effectively, this app needs to be radically overhauled so it is streamlined and effective, with first-class back-up.
It must also guarantee effective cyber-security measures to keep ahead of the ever-growing threat posed by hackers who target patients’ private details.
Otherwise patients could be lumbered with a vast tech albatross that needs billions of pounds more to prop it up.
Can’t tiptoe on Tulip
HOW can the Government expect to maintain any credibility while Tulip Siddiq is City Minister?
Ms Siddiq has already been under investigation by Bangladesh’s Anti- Corruption Commission over embezzlement allegations, which she denies.
Now we learn she was given a flat in central London by someone said to be connected with a previous ousted Bangladeshi government.
The flat, which she still owns, could now be worth up to £650,000.
Yet she hasn’t paid a penny.
Again Ms Siddiq denies any wrong-doing.
But as City Minister she is responsible for overseeing the fight against money-laundering and corruption.
As a result, her own finances need to be spotless.
Any proof otherwise and her position would become untenable.
Sir Keir Starmer has made much of the integrity of his new Government.
He cannot afford another scandal.