Network capacity for HIS customers has been under extreme strain which resulted in a request to staff to only login to the network when they really needed to. This seems to have had a positive impact and has reduced some of the load on the network.
Reports into the HIS throughout today along with routine monitoring seem to indicate that this has stabilised the remote network access service. The system has been enhanced with additional capacity last night and will be further upgraded this evening.
Some issues were encountered this morning which seem to correlate with a 9am “rush” to get onto the system. Priority staff that do need access are asked to try and avoid 9AM and stagger their logon time to alleviate pressure on the system.
Summary:
Rate of network utilisation seems to have reduced (relatively stable throughout the day at approx. 3,200 users).
Extra capacity has been added overnight although some issues were encountered early this morning.
System appears to have stabilised following the initial issue this morning.
Further expansion of capacity planned this evening to further enhance capacity and stabilisation.
NHS England have a page of specialty guides to manage specific patients, especially with COVID 19.
Around £2million is being invested in additional IT equipment to support remote working in primary care across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. A Remote Working Delivery Plan has been developed, which is working to a local deadline of 12 April.
There are two phases to the delivery plan, the first focusing on enablement and making sure that practices have the right levels of equipment for their staff to work from home and the second phase looking at enhancing the equipment and processes in place.
Over the next couple of weeks more than 600 devices, including a mixture of PCs and laptops, will be deployed to practice staff working from home ensuring that around 42% of the current workforce will be supported to work remotely.
All reasonable costs for practices who have already purchased additional equipment to support remote working will be reimbursed.
IT – Remote Working Deployment Plan
A detailed Remote Working Deployment Plan has been developed to support the CCGs wider digital response to the Covid-19 outbreak.
The plan includes a schedule of PC and laptop deliveries, which will be prioritised so that practices with high levels of staff isolation, shielding or sickness are supported as soon as possible. There is also a new national VDI offer under development that will also support front line staff to gain access to their clinical systems remotely.
If all devices deployed are used as their own device and not connected back to CloudPC, with consideration for Mac users who are having issues with accessing CloudPC and therefore require hardware, we estimate to have 1300 users remotely working for primary care by Friday 13 April 2020. This does not include current laptop stock in practices and the potential additional capacity of the new VDI offer that should be available for use by this date.
Headsets and Cameras
The CCG had 800 cameras and 900 headsets ordered to support this programme of work. Unfortunately, suppliers have not been able to deliver this hardware to practices as quickly as the project team would have liked. To resolve this issue, all cameras and headsets will be deployed to a central location for onward delivery with PCs/Laptops or by CCG, MLCSU or other staff to ensure remote consultation activity can continue to grow with the expected increase in demand. This and the roll out of Desktop PCs and Laptops will be the prime focus for project leads
I’ve got some good news for all our practices who use accuRx Chain. **We are now paying for the SMS sent by practices, and in return accuRx have switched on some extra features: unlimited Pathways and additional Floreys.** This extra functionality has now been switched on for practices as of today!
– **Pathways** allows you to send a schedule of delayed messages to a patient (e.g. a nudge to book an annual review, book a blood test or follow-up a referral to secondary care). Pathways can help you to standardise management, deliver best practice care and empower patients to engage with their care. Please find more information on Pathways [here](https://support.accurx.com/en/articles/2401578-using-sms-pathways).
– **Lifestyle surveys** are offered when you use Chain’s new survey feature. You can send surveys to patients via SMS and save (coded) responses straight to the patient record. Lifestyle surveys include smoking cessation, BMI and alcohol consumption and help you to support patients to live healthier lifestyles and reach patients who are ‘hard-to-reach’. Please find more information on Florey [here](https://support.accurx.com/en/?q=florey).
Some other recent developments to Chain include:
– ‘Two way messaging’, where you can invite a patient to send a one-off response
– Patients can send pictures
– You can send a document link via SMS
IT UPDATE 27/03/2020
Network capacity for HIS customers has been under extreme strain which resulted in a request to staff to only login to the network when they really needed to. This seems to have had a positive impact and has reduced some of the load on the network.
Reports into the HIS throughout today along with routine monitoring seem to indicate that this has stabilised the remote network access service. The system has been enhanced with additional capacity last night and will be further upgraded this evening.
Some issues were encountered this morning which seem to correlate with a 9am “rush” to get onto the system. Priority staff that do need access are asked to try and avoid 9AM and stagger their logon time to alleviate pressure on the system.
Summary:
Rate of network utilisation seems to have reduced (relatively stable throughout the day at approx. 3,200 users).
Extra capacity has been added overnight although some issues were encountered early this morning.
System appears to have stabilised following the initial issue this morning.
Further expansion of capacity planned this evening to further enhance capacity and stabilisation.
NHS England have a page of specialty guides to manage specific patients, especially with COVID 19.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/secondary-care/other-resources/specialty-guides/
IT Update 30/03/2020
Around £2million is being invested in additional IT equipment to support remote working in primary care across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. A Remote Working Delivery Plan has been developed, which is working to a local deadline of 12 April.
There are two phases to the delivery plan, the first focusing on enablement and making sure that practices have the right levels of equipment for their staff to work from home and the second phase looking at enhancing the equipment and processes in place.
Over the next couple of weeks more than 600 devices, including a mixture of PCs and laptops, will be deployed to practice staff working from home ensuring that around 42% of the current workforce will be supported to work remotely.
All reasonable costs for practices who have already purchased additional equipment to support remote working will be reimbursed.
IT Update – 31/03/2020
IT – Remote Working Deployment Plan
A detailed Remote Working Deployment Plan has been developed to support the CCGs wider digital response to the Covid-19 outbreak.
The plan includes a schedule of PC and laptop deliveries, which will be prioritised so that practices with high levels of staff isolation, shielding or sickness are supported as soon as possible. There is also a new national VDI offer under development that will also support front line staff to gain access to their clinical systems remotely.
If all devices deployed are used as their own device and not connected back to CloudPC, with consideration for Mac users who are having issues with accessing CloudPC and therefore require hardware, we estimate to have 1300 users remotely working for primary care by Friday 13 April 2020. This does not include current laptop stock in practices and the potential additional capacity of the new VDI offer that should be available for use by this date.
Headsets and Cameras
The CCG had 800 cameras and 900 headsets ordered to support this programme of work. Unfortunately, suppliers have not been able to deliver this hardware to practices as quickly as the project team would have liked. To resolve this issue, all cameras and headsets will be deployed to a central location for onward delivery with PCs/Laptops or by CCG, MLCSU or other staff to ensure remote consultation activity can continue to grow with the expected increase in demand. This and the roll out of Desktop PCs and Laptops will be the prime focus for project leads
I’ve got some good news for all our practices who use accuRx Chain. **We are now paying for the SMS sent by practices, and in return accuRx have switched on some extra features: unlimited Pathways and additional Floreys.** This extra functionality has now been switched on for practices as of today!
– **Pathways** allows you to send a schedule of delayed messages to a patient (e.g. a nudge to book an annual review, book a blood test or follow-up a referral to secondary care). Pathways can help you to standardise management, deliver best practice care and empower patients to engage with their care. Please find more information on Pathways [here](https://support.accurx.com/en/articles/2401578-using-sms-pathways).
– **Lifestyle surveys** are offered when you use Chain’s new survey feature. You can send surveys to patients via SMS and save (coded) responses straight to the patient record. Lifestyle surveys include smoking cessation, BMI and alcohol consumption and help you to support patients to live healthier lifestyles and reach patients who are ‘hard-to-reach’. Please find more information on Florey [here](https://support.accurx.com/en/?q=florey).
Some other recent developments to Chain include:
– ‘Two way messaging’, where you can invite a patient to send a one-off response
– Patients can send pictures
– You can send a document link via SMS
Can you do video consultations with this software
Yes – tool is approved by NHS Digital.