Are Fax Machines outdated now?

[midlife]

You are totally right it's simple enough to sort in the real world but this is the dog dinner of NHS IT we are talking about. Which has since day one been totally mis managed with on one standard which is way they are now stuck with different systems across the board and IT depts that believe deploying cheep crap (that ends up costing a mint away from the real world) handheld tech that is of little use other than as a chopping board is some how progress.

Not to mention the £13 billion they spent to try and unify the NHS IT / electronic patient records........ And then gave in !!!

 

[tom73]

oh yes who can forget that mess up. That no one ever owned up to.

 

[gavgav]

I have an e mail ending.nhs.co.uk which is not secure and I can't use patient identifiable data on it unless it goes as an encrypted document which is a pain.

Not everybody has an email ending nhs.net which is the supposedly secure email system.... And there is zero chance of me getting one.

There is a national project running to make all NHS trusts move staff to NHS.Net only, with a fairly imminent deadline.

I had a .nhs.uk account up until July, as well, but have had an NHS.Net one for 12 years, alongside it. Our nhs.uk accounts had an encryption button built into Outlook, by our I.T department, which enabled us to send securely, but I tended to always use NHS.Net to NHS.Net for transfer of any PID.

Your I.T team should be working to move you onto NHS.Net.........

 

[gavgav]

That is concerning:
As it's a simple (and cheap) IT and HR issue to set up a closed e-mail for every member of staff, even when the number of staff is in the millions.

Most private companies, including those that employ hundreds of thousands of people, have a unique e-mail address for every employee and contractor.
That is where your paycheck gets sent to, its how HR contact you, and how you send and receive all work related messages.

In the (largish, but tiny by NHS standards) company I work for, everyone from the bog cleaner to the CEO has a company ID and e-mail address, and you can not even do a afternoon of work experience from school without getting one.

HR get a load of details from every person. Even someone only doing a few hours contract work.
It includes all the usual stuff like your full name, address, bank details, NI codes and a copy of your passport.
They also take a mug shot photo and get a basic medical history.

Anyone unable or unwilling to provide all the information (and there have been a few) simply does not gain entry or get paid until they do (or don't).
(It does mean that there have been a couple of (British) contract cleaners with no passport or bank detail can not be employed)

I can assure you, you cannot get a job in the NHS without all of that happening!

 

[beepbeep]

my GP practice still use FAX...They insist on either phone call, letter or FAX in order communicate with them as they will not release their email address as it is only used for internal communications !!! Absolutely ridiculous !