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Health Visitors Surveyed on NHS IT Revolution
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Health visitors and community nurses are being surveyed to see if they are receiving the benefits of the IT revolution in the NHS.
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Members of the 18,000-strong Community Practitioners’ and Health Visitors’ Association (CPHVA) are being sent a questionnaire as part of the Make IT Happen campaign.
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The campaign’s three objectives are: to ensure that every health visitor and community nurse has a computer on their desk; that there is access to the Internet, and that the necessary training is given.
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The government’s strategy, Building the Information Core says that by 31 March 2002 all NHS clinical and support staff should have desk top access to basic email, browsing and directory services.
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But the CPHVA’s Professional Officer for Education and Professional Development, Ruth Hudson said: ‘The feedback we have received from our members is that they are losing out compared, for example, with GPs.
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‘The government’s bold ambitions appear to being frustrated at trust and board level. The survey will ascertain how bad the situation is and this will be followed by a lobbying campaign aimed at trusts.’
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The results of the survey will be announced at the CPHVA’s Information Revolution in Primary Care conference in London on 16 July.
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The campaign is being jointly organised with the Community Psychiatric Nurses Association (CPNA), which, like the CPHVA, is a professional autonomous section of the MSF trade union.
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