Frequently Asked Questions

 

What is NaSH for? [-]

NaSH – the NHSScotland National Sexual Health IT system project aims to provide a common IT system to support specialist sexual health services across NHSScotland.

What is sexual health? [-]

The World Health Organisation defines sexual health as:"A state of physical, emotional, mental and social wellbeing related to sexuality; it is not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity. Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sex experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence. For sexual health to be attained and maintained, the sexual rights of all persons must be respected, protected and fulfilled."

What services will use NaSH? [-]

The system will be used by Family Planning and Genito Urinary Medicine services and the intention is that it can be used wherever these specialised services are provided e.g. in acute HIV care, community pharmacy or general practice settings.

Does a NaSH exist? [-]

There are some existing commercial products that are capable of many of the requirements for sexual health services. However some development work by the supplier is inevitable to ensure that their application integrates with the existing NHSScotland technical architecture.

Who’s paying? [-]

The Scottish Executive will provide significant funding; to support the NaSH procurement; for licences; and to fund the cost of integration to strategic national systems such as SCI Store and SCI Gateway. Health Boards have received funding to support the implementation of the national Sexual Health and Relationships Strategy and it is expected that some of this funding will be used locally.

Where can I find out more about the Scottish Sexual Health and Relationships Strategy? [-]

The Strategy is entitled Respect and Responsibility: Strategy and Action Plan for Improving Sexual Health and can be found on the Scottish Executive web site at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/01/20603/51174

Who decides what system is procured? [-]

A Project Reference Group has been established to determine the requirements of the system and to evaluate proposed solutions. Members of this group represent clinical, managerial, administrative and technical stakeholders from across NHSScotland. A Project Review Group has also been established that will carry out quality assurance on behalf of the Project Board and this group also has wide ranging representation from across NHSScotland. The final decision will be taken by the Project Board, and will be informed by the recommendations and advice of the Reference and Review Groups.

How is the NaSH chosen? [-]

A formal EU procurement exercise will be undertaken. An operational requirement is being drawn up and will be provided to suppliers who respond to the EU Journal advertisement and meet basic qualification criteria. A formal evaluation process will be worked through, including weighted scoring to an agreed model, supplier demonstrations and site visits.This process is being supported by the National Information Services Group's central procurement team, to ensure that best practice guidelines are followed throughout the selection process.

When is it available for use? [-]

The procurement process is expected to be completed in Spring 2007, and an early adopter site will be chosen for the initial implementation.The system will then be gradually rolled out across NHSScotland.

What is the role of SCI-Store? [-]

SCI-Store is a key element in the national eHealth Strategy. It will provide NaSH with demographic information about patients so that this is up to date and does not require re-keying. Laboratory results will be held in SCI-Store and NaSH will post data for sharing back to SCI-Store so that it may be available to others.

What is SCI-Store? [-]

SCI-Store is the ubiquitous data repository for NHSScotland. It is used in all Health Boards currently mainly for laboratory and radiology reports but, increasingly, will hold clinical letters and core speciality information. Links between SCI-Stores will facilitate sharing of standardised clinical information between sites/regions. SCI-Store will be the main source of patient demographics (CHI Number, Name and Address details etc) and it also incorporates sophisticated multi-indexing capabilities that will facilitate selection of the correct patient.

Will there be one sexual health system for all NHSScotland? [-]

A decision has still to be made as to how the service will be provided and the project team are currently consulting locally with clinical and ICT colleagues on this issue.

Can patients still use aliases to remain “anonymous” If they choose to? [-]

If patients are willing to allow their GP to see their electronic record the intention is that information will be available in general practice, however, patients will still have the right to remain “anonymous” and use aliases so that access to their care information is limited to those health care professionals providing sexual health services to them.

Is NaSH part of Scotland’s Local Service Provider EPR Suite? [-]

This should be thought of as a step towards the vision of an electronic health record for every patient. The time is not yet right for NHSScotland to make the move to a single suite of software products but NaSH will – by introducing information and data standards into sexual health clinical record keeping and demonstrating the benefits of being able to share information between clinical staff – do much to change the culture in readiness for such a move when (and if) it becomes appropriate.

What is the relationship with existing projects? [-]

NaSH will become part of the portfolio of products endorsed for use throughout NHSScotland but there will be no direct impact on existing work such as the PACS implementation, A&E implementation, the Glasgow Portal Project etc.

Why are we not using GCS for Sexual Health and all other clinical services? [-]

The Generic Clinical System (GCS) is not meant to replicate or replace sophisticated systems such as are required for radiotherapy planning, drug prescribing and patient administration etc. Where niche IT applications exist in the marketplace, the market can be tested to see if these meet NHSScotland’s requirements. If the market place cannot meet our requirements, GCS may be considered along with other NHS owned solutions.

How will agreement on datasets be achieved? [-]

Groups of like-minded clinicians are already agreeing what information they require to care for specific groups of patients. Together with staff from the NHS National Services Scotland’s Information and Statistics Division (ISD) they are working to produce informatically acceptable data sets that can be incorporated into the Scottish Health and Social Care Data Dictionary. The National Clinical Datasets Development Programme (NCDDP) is responsible for this work.NCDDP have agreed to bring forward their work plan and are starting work on the development of the sexual health data set to complement this procurement.

Where can I find out more about the National Clinical Dataset Development Programme? [-]

On their web site at www.show.scot.nhs.uk/clinicaldatasets/

How do I find out what’s in the Scottish Health and Social Care Data Dictionary? [-]

You can look on the web site at www.datadictionary.scot.nhs.uk

Will NaSH link to local Patient Administration Systems (PAS)? [-]

NaSH will obtain its demographic information - where it is available - from SCI-Store.

How will this help with my appraisal and assessment? [-]

This will be dependent upon how well local clinicians understand the information that they will require for appraisal and assessment.Assuming they have this agreed with their appraisers, there is no reason why NaSH cannot be used to help collect the appropriate data as patient care proceeds. Good reporting is predicated upon good planning and data collection.

How will NaSH help when there’s a shortage of basic IT equipment?

[-] It is recognised that implementation of NaSH will require more than just procuring and licensing the software and developing interfaces. The Scottish Executive Health Department has targets for making basic IT equipment available to all clinical staff and, while much progress has been made, this is an ongoing task. However, the NaSH project per-se will not be providing local hardware.

What is SCI Gateway? [-]

SCI-Gateway is the preferred route of transmission of standardised clinical information between NHSScotland organisations e.g. between secondary care and General Practice systems. SCI-Gateway is preferred to e-mail as it supports structured messaging which allows information to be ‘posted’ between electronic health records e.g. an immediate discharge letter can be incorporated into a patient’s GP record. Applications such as the referrals package allow health care professionals to complete pre-agreed pro-formas with online support. This can ensure that appropriate tests are requested or completed prior to referral and the information can then be transmitted to the specialist service provider. Where referrals are received via SCI-Gateway, this referral information could then become the core for the patient’s NaSH record.

What if my question isn't here? [-]

Any additional questions can be emailed to Lynda Lawson: - lynda.lawson@nhs.net.

 

 

 

Latest News - January 2008

Following the procurement in 2006/2007 it was decided to award the National Sexual Health (NaSH) system contract to AxSys Technology Ltd. The winning bid was a tailored version of the Excelicare product which forms the base software of the national Generic Clinical System (GCS) Toolkit contract for which there is an NHSScotland licence. The outcome of the contract is a NaSH system and enhanced functionality within the GCS Toolkit that is available to all NHSScotland organisations...

 

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