- Any complaints or escalations from each trust across the UK relating to technology. Including new technology being introduced (iPads etc.) as well as complaints about the internal computer systems. I would like this information broken down by hospital or other location (e.g. ambulance dispatch centre or community area), and would like the details of each the complaint.
The Trust does hold the information you have requested, however we estimate that compliance with your request would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12 of the Freedom of information Act 2000. This is currently £450. The appropriate limit would be exceeded if it would require more than 18 hours work.
- If the above has an impact on the A&E department, I would like that detailed separately.
Not Applicable
- Any information that is submitted internally relating to complaints about technology
The Trust does hold the information you have requested, however we estimate that compliance with your request would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12 of the Freedom of information Act 2000. This is currently £450. The appropriate limit would be exceeded if it would require more than 18 hours work.
In order to provide this information the ICT Department would need to scrutinise over 900 priority calls held on their database system. It is estimated that this would take longer than 18 hours. To scrutinise 900 P1s and decide what would affect ‘normal running’ would take a couple of managers around 70 hours (based on reading through each call and coming to a decision as to whether it affected normal running)
- Information about any tech trials your trust has been a part of, including smart watches, iPads etc. and any feedback you have had on these.
The Trust does hold the information you have requested, however we estimate that compliance with your request would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12 of the Freedom of information Act 2000. This is currently £450. The appropriate limit would be exceeded if it would require more than 18 hours work. However, we can tell you that all key, critical Department/services refer to their Business Continuity Plans and Disaster Recovery Plans, in the event of a disruption.
The ICT department do not fund tech trials. Clinical areas may have trailed tech devices. In order to provide this information we would have to review all projects and supporting documentation for the last five year time period, across the whole of the Trust. This piece of work would take a significant amount of time due to the amount of projects submitted over this period, and that projects are managed by a number of staff over a number of department and services.
- Any instances of periods of time where hospitals are unable to function normally because of issues with the IT systems. Including details of the trust and time it took to fix the issue
During the WannaCRY incident email’s with attachments were blocked for the afternoon, and reinstated on the evening of the 12th May. The link between HEFT and the Community sites were disconnected, so no infected PC‘s from the Community could connect to the site, for this reason, some GP surgeries could not access clinical letters through Electronic Document Transfer (Docman).
In 2017 an unauthorised device was plugged into a network point and disrupted two wards. The wards were up and running within two hours.
- Results of the employee survey for the past 2 years, including any mentions of frustrations around technology.
The results of the annual staff survey are published on the NHS survey website, and we have enclosed the reports for 2012 to 2016. The 2017 results will be published on the 6th March 2018.
We have reviewed the staff comments in relation to frustrations around technology from the previous 5 years, which are summarised below:
| Year | Survey | Staff comments – frustration around technology |
| 2012 | National Staff Survey | No comments |
| 2013 | National Staff Survey | No comments |
| 2014 | National Staff Survey | 9 comments relating to: IT slow / printer issues (x2), Poor systems & infrastructure (x7). |
| 2015 | National Staff Survey | 11 comments relating to: IT slow, duplicate systems paper and electronic (x6), ineffective / inadequate IT systems (x2), not enough computers (x1). |
| 2016 | National Staff Survey | 5 comments relating to: IT systems ineffective and not fit for purpose (x2), old IT systems (x1), poor IT systems (x1), more capacity needed (x1). |
In addition, we introduced a quarterly staff survey in 2014, which we run 3 times a year. We have reviewed the staff comments in relation to frustrations around technology from the data we have, which is summarised below:
| Year | Survey | Staff comments – frustration around technology |
| 2014/15 | Quarterly staff surveys | No comments |
| 2015/16 | Quarterly staff surveys | 10 comments relating to: Computer systems slow, poor & counter-productive (x7), computers not working and poor wifi (x1), duplicate systems (x1), more laptops/ipads (x1), |
| 2016/17 | Quarterly staff surveys | 6 comments relating to: IT systems are slow(x1), poor IT systems (x3), IT systems inadequate (x2) |
| 2017/18 | Quarterly staff surveys | 4 comments relating to: Poor IT systems (x3), inadequate/old (x1), |
NHS_staff_survey_2012_RR1_full
NHS_staff_survey_2013_RR1_full
NHS_staff_survey_2014_RR1_full
NHS_staff_survey_2015_RR1_full
1. NHS_staff_survey_2016_RR1_full
I would also like information on:
- Information on the computer systems and operating systems that are currently being used in each trust
The Trust does hold this information; however we are withholding it under Section 31 (3) of The Freedom of Information Act as the disclosure could prejudice the prevention or detection of (cyber) crime. There is therefore significant public interest in not providing this information.
