April 2015

New Medical Director appointed

Rhidian Hurle to replace Dr Martin Murphy in May

Mr Rhidian Hurle,MBBCh, MRCS, MD, FRCS (Urology) Consultant Urological Surgeon and Associate Medical Director (IM&T) with Abertawe Bro Morgannwg Health Board, will join the NHS Wales Informatics Service as our new Medical Director.

He replaces Dr Martin Murphy, who retired in January.

Rhidian was appointed following an open recruitment exercise and will take up his role on 18 May. He will work three days a week for the NHS Wales Informatics Service while retaining a clinical role within Abertawe Bro Morgannwg Health Board.

"We are very pleased to welcome Rhidian to the Informatics Service," says Director Andrew Griffiths. "He brings with him a wealth of experience and knowledge and is committed to the use of technology to drive through improvements in the quality and efficiency of healthcare. He will have a key leadership role and will reinforce clinical engagement with the digital agenda."

Rhidian grew up and was educated in Tenby, Pembrokeshire and graduated from the University Of Wales College Of Medicine, Cardiff in 1995.He undertook basic surgical and higher urological training in Wales and has worked in all the main hospitals along the Welsh M4.

Rhidian was awarded an MD from Cardiff University for research into prostate cancer in 2008and is an Honorary Clinical Teacher (Cardiff University), a member of the British Association of Urological Surgery, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the European Association of Urology.

"I'm looking forward to meeting the teams within NHS Wales Informatics Service when I start next month," Rhidian says. "I am excited by the opportunity to help create intuitive user interface systems that enable the delivery of modern high quality care for every patient in Wales."

Community pharmacists given access to discharge advice letters

New technology allows pharmacists to review medications prescribed while patient in hospital

A new application which provides community pharmacists with secure access to the medicines section of a patient's electronic discharge advice letter has launched this week.

The application is funded by the Healthcare Technology Fund, and is an enhancement to 'Choose Pharmacy' (previously known as Common Ailments Service).

The new application provides timely and accurate information to community pharmacists post discharge. It will allow community pharmacists to perform a discharge medicines review, checking the medications a patient has been prescribed against any changes that were made to their medications during their stay in hospital.

These reviews should reduce harm and avoidable re-admissions to hospital caused by medication errors.

Homegrown e-learning course heads across the border

Online course for care of vulnerable adults used by DH

The latest version of an e-learning course developed in Wales that trains staff in the care of vulnerable adults in health and social care has been taken up by the Department of Health (DH).

After a series of online accredited courses in positive behavioural support created and launched in Wales, proved globally successful, the Department of Health collaborated with the Learning Disability Directorate, Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board (ABMU) and NHS Wales Informatics Service to create the Positive and Safe Awareness Raising course.

The awareness training is a key component of the Department of Health's workforce and training initiative within a two year programme called 'Positive and Safe' which aims to reduce the incidence of restrictive interventions across health and social care.

The awareness course is available on the Learning@NHS Wales e-learning website (just type in the word 'challenge' in the search bar) or the Skills for Health website. The course will provide a comprehensive overview of Positive Behavioural Support, the best-practice approach recommended in current professional and Government guidance for vulnerable adults in health and social care.

"The courses are aimed at staff pursuing a career in this field," says ABMU's Service Development Consultant Professor Kathy Lowe. "Improving the expertise of staff supporting people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour has led to better support for those in need who in turn have reported improvements in their quality of life."

Over two thousand candidates from a wide range of organisations globally have registered for the original courses which have received positive feedback from participants.

Informatics in the News

Turning a spotlight on patient record misuse

The latest HSJ Journal supplement, entitled "Paperless NHS" includes a feature with NHS Wales Informatics Service's Head of Information Governance, Darren Lloyd focusing on how NHS Wales is using technology to pinpoint unauthorised access to patient records.

Download a free .pdf of the supplement from the HSJ website.

Informatics in Numbers

60 million per year

The implementation of the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) Blood Sciences module across the whole of Wales has been completed over the Easter period with the last implementation in Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board (ABMU).

All of Wales Pathology departments now use the new system for Haematology, Biochemistry, Immunology as well as Microbiology investigations and current information indicates it will undertake over 60 million tests over a period of a year.

The implementation of Histology and Cytology services is expected to be completed in the next few months and Blood Transfusion by the end of March 2016.

The staff in ABMU say they are very pleased with the way the system was delivered and that the level of disruption was very low given the requirement to provide continuity of service.

E-eye-referrals

Optometry to benefit from electronic referrals

Welsh optometrists will soon be able to send electronic referrals directly to hospitals.

Ten practices across Wales are taking part in a pilot of the new service this spring, allowing optometrists to log on to the Welsh Clinical Communications Gateway (WCCG) currently used by GP practices to send e-referrals to secondary care.

E-referrals are more immediate are that it will be quicker and more cost effective than paper referrals. Optometry practices will also receive notification from the hospital to confirm the patient referral has been received.

Follow Us

NHS Wales Informatics Service | | informatics@wales.nhs.uk | http://www.wales.nhs.uk/informatics