NHS Connecting for Health (NHS CFH) is disappointed that its suppliers have not yet been able to deploy functioning Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS) in its North West and West Midlands (NWWM) Cluster that meet the needs of trusts and their clinicians.
The go-live dates for the early adopters in the NWWM Cluster were repeatedly rescheduled over the course of 2005.
The lead clinicians from the first four sites planned to go live with PACS in the NWWM Cluster urged NHS CFH to change the PACS system, having worked very hard to make the Computer Sciences Corporation Limited (CSC) PACS solution viable, and following a lengthy period of delay and difficulties.
Throughout this, clinicians in the NWWM Cluster have been engaged in its PACS programme and NHS CFH certainly has not impeded its subcontractors in their engagements with clinicians. Following these missed deadlines, CSC opened discussions with alternative providers.
Discussions are ongoing between NHS CFH and the NWWM Cluster Local Service Provider (LSP) Computer Sciences Corporation Limited (CSC) regarding an alternative Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS) solution for the NWWM Cluster.
The alternative solution being considered is based on PACS technology that has been successfully deployed elsewhere. A formal announcement will be made in due course.
So far there have been 24 deployments of PACS systems in the Eastern, London and Southern clusters and the deployment of PACS systems are now taking place at the rate of over one per week. The current monthly PACS deployment rate is better than in any previous year in the NHS.
In addition, there is one PACS data store now in operation, with another ready to begin operating, some 58 business cases have been agreed and more than 16 million images have been stored comprising over 1 million studies.
PACS brings great benefits to both patients and the clinicians treating them.
PACS reduces the time waiting for images to become available so diagnosis will be quicker; reduces retesting for patients as images are more easily available as and when required; allows images to be viewed by experts hundreds of miles away from multiple sites 24 hours a day – wherever there is a computer, not just at traditional “lightboxes” – makes lost images a thing of the past; and removes unnecessary travel to repeat x-rays. PACS also supports the storage and transmission of moving images such as ultrasound scans.
