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Is technology killing the NHS?

Arran Cameron
I'm sorry if this comes across as pessimistic but I believe that the NHS will die unless seriously intelligent reforms are made to it. These reforms will probably not be possible because of inertia in the system. What happened to Stafford Hospital is a snapshot of what will come to other NHS trusts.


When the NHS was established in the 1940s, technology in hospitals was far simpler. In many cases medical procedures were carried out using simple hand tools. The most complicated piece of equipment in a hospital was probably an X-Ray machine. A modern hospital contains tens of thousands of pieces of advanced machinery.


This costs a large amount of money to buy.

This costs a large amount of money to maintain and service.

This costs a large amount of money to provide staff training.


The amount of money spent by hospitals on advanced medical devices and IT equipment keeps increasing year after year and is a substantial part of the NHS budget.


If this isn't bad enough in itself, the NHS is not very good when it comes to using and deploying technology due to its cumbersome and antiquated management structure along with the mentality of a high proportion of its staff. The NHS is clearly not a visionary and progressive organisation.


Only a small fraction of medical devices are specifically designed for the NHS. A high proportion of them are off the shelf products primarily designed for the US healthcare market.


The situation is marginally better with software although NHS IT projects are known to have been expensive disasters.


Therefore, is technology killing the NHS?
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    Paul Gruszka:


    Because Nursing staff know the business.

    Nurses generally aren't all that savvy when it comes to technology. They are also known to treat medical devices like dirt!


    I have a psychological theory that intellect and empathy tend to counterbalance each other like a see-saw. Nursing is (traditionally) a career that requires people with a high level of empathy which means, if my theory is true, that a high proportion of nurses have weaker than average levels of intellect that explains why so many aren't savvy when it comes to technology. I have joked that nurse syndrome is the inverse condition of Asperger syndrome.


    Medical engineering staff in the NHS are often underrated, undervalued, marginalised, invisible to the public and politicians, excluded from decision making, not factored into decisions made by management and medics, and there usually aren't enough of them. Winston Churchill once quoted that engineers should be on tap, not on top. However, considering the advances in medical devices and IT in hospitals then is it high time that technical minds were allowed to get on top?


    If there is a conflict between the interests of nurses and the interests of engineers then should nurses always win?
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    Paul Gruszka:


    Because Nursing staff know the business.

    Nurses generally aren't all that savvy when it comes to technology. They are also known to treat medical devices like dirt!


    I have a psychological theory that intellect and empathy tend to counterbalance each other like a see-saw. Nursing is (traditionally) a career that requires people with a high level of empathy which means, if my theory is true, that a high proportion of nurses have weaker than average levels of intellect that explains why so many aren't savvy when it comes to technology. I have joked that nurse syndrome is the inverse condition of Asperger syndrome.


    Medical engineering staff in the NHS are often underrated, undervalued, marginalised, invisible to the public and politicians, excluded from decision making, not factored into decisions made by management and medics, and there usually aren't enough of them. Winston Churchill once quoted that engineers should be on tap, not on top. However, considering the advances in medical devices and IT in hospitals then is it high time that technical minds were allowed to get on top?


    If there is a conflict between the interests of nurses and the interests of engineers then should nurses always win?
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