Stephen Dorrell calls on NHS to make better use of IT

Stephen Dorrell, chair of the health select committee and former health secretary, has called for the NHS to make better use of IT and management information to eliminate inefficiencies. Speaking at the National Children and Adult Services Conference, he said that "great opportunities" offered by new technology are "so far sadly largely unrealised" in both health and social care. "We all know the caricature of the GP surgery where there is a practice nurse, a community health nurse and you have a social care nurse sitting sometimes almost literally in next door offices, operating on separate budgets and separate IT budgets," he said. "We have to take advantage of the opportunities to use information technology better in our system to eliminate that kind of nonsense." He said such a scenario is massively inefficient and a major contributor to service failures in health and social care, and called for better integration between the two sectors to make them more focused on supporting people who need continuous care. He claimed that NHS and social care systems are often based on "traditional silos born of a different era". Joining up would make it possible to deliver care more efficiently and improve its quality. This article is published by Guardian Professional. For updates on public sector IT, join the Government Computing Network her e .