Government will ban NHS from buying fax machines

Source: Vsoft, 31/12/2018

In July, a freedom of information request revealed the health
service still used some 9,000 fax machines across the country and
in response, the NHS trust pledged to remove 95% of those by the
end of this year.
But, that is not enough for the Health Secretary Matt Hancock who
has demanded the NHS be `fax free` in little over a year`s time.
`Because I love the NHS,` he said. `I want to bring it into the
21st century and use the very best technology available. We`ve got
to get the basics right, like having computers that work and
getting rid of the archaic fax machines still used across the NHS
when everywhere else got rid of them years ago.
`I am instructing the NHS to stop buying fax machines and I`m
setting a deadline for getting rid of them altogether. Email is
much more secure and miles more effective than fax machines. The
NHS can be the best in the world and we can start with getting rid
of fax machines.`
Richard Kerr, chair of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS), agreed
and said the number of fax machines still in use was `absurd`. The
service is already exploring advances in cutting-edge digital
technology for healthcare, but it`s now being forced to do the
same with its communications.
`As these digital technologies begin to play a bigger part in how
we deliver healthcare it is crucial that we invest in better ways
of communicating the vast amount of patient information that is
going to be generated,` he said.
`Most other organisations scrapped fax machines in the early 2000s
and it is high time the NHS caught up. The RCS supports the ban on
fax machines that will come into place in March 2020.`
Since the RCS published data on NHS fax machines, Kerr said it had
seen a number of trusts pledge to `axe the fax` and have shown
it`s possible to modernise NHS communications.
Axe the fax was a campaign launched in September by Leeds Teaching
Hospital (LTHT) that invited other trusts to across the country to
set up targets to ditch fax machines. The trust aimed to remove
95% as opposed to 100% because it feared a handful of people would
still be reliant on legacy technology.
Richard Corbridge, chief digital and information officer at LTHT
said at the time: `We don`t underestimate the enormity of the
challenge to remove all our machines in such a short time frame,
but we simply cannot afford to continue living in the dark ages.`
The government is sending out a clear message regarding legacy
technology by warning that all digital services and IT systems
will have to meet a clear set of open standards. They must be
secure and continuously upgraded and any system that does not meet
these standards will be `phased out`. The government added that it
will look to end contracts with providers who do not understand
these principles for the health and care sector.
IT Pro has approached NHS Digital for comment on how it will
tackle the move to from fax machines to digital technology but has
yet to get a response.