PRESS RELEASE : Plea for Welsh NHS to do away with fax machines once and for all [November 2022]

The press release issued by Welsh Conservatives on 4 November 2022.

The Welsh Conservatives have re-iterated their call on the Labour Government in Cardiff Bay to do away with fax machines in the NHS to modernise the ageing digital systems in the health service.

The call comes as the UK’s communications regulator Ofcom consults on changes to telecoms rules that could formalise its obsolescence.

Commenting, Welsh Conservative Shadow Health Minister Russell George MS said:

“Wales has longest NHS waiting times in Britain and one of the aspects holding us back is the lack of modernisation – we are an analogue being in the digital age.

“Behaviours and lifestyles have changed significantly since devolution and it’s about time we had a health service that reflected this through innovation, which is why we should use Ofcom’s consultation as an opportunity to make what is quite a modest leap into the future.

“That does not just mean doing away with outdated fax machines but adapting digital systems wholescale, as we have outlined in our NHS tech bundle. This will level-up the delivery of Welsh healthcare with other UK nations as well as make it more efficient in its own right.

“It is essential the Labour Government get on with this so that NHS Wales can better serve the patients and staff in ways it should have been doing for years.”

In September, the Party called on Labour ministers to ramp-up efforts to modernise NHS digital systems after its outdated nature is damaging efforts to deliver effective healthcare in Wales.

In addition to abolishing the use of fax machines to move to a fully digital system, the NHS Tech Bundle would include:

• Requesting another UK nation for an ‘off-the-shelf’ software system to replace the increasingly unreliable Cancer Network Information System Cymru (CaNISC), so outdated it has caused outages where doctors couldn’t access cancer patient files;
• Fully rollout e-prescribing across NHS Wales, something that was already introduced in England and Scotland since 2005 and 2009, respectively; and
• Develop an NHS Wales app so, like patients in England, people in Wales can access health records, order prescriptions, contact a health professional, and manage appointments.

In 2022, fax machines are still being bought because of a lack of progress in sharing electronic patient records. The Health and Social Care Committee heard the following evidence as part of its report into hospital discharges:

• “We have just bought a fax machine for the new hospital. For heavens’ sake. What are we doing? GPs fax referrals into the emergency unit. I never see it. Why is that not e-mailed to me? Because I can’t deal with the emergency information if the emergency information doesn’t get to me” (Dr Karl Davis of the British Geriatrics Society)
• “In other parts of the UK, they’ve now given care providers NHS e-mail addresses, which enables records to be transferred more easily and more securely. It’s something we’re in conversation about in Wales, but it hasn’t happened yet. So, it might be something that you want to recommend as part of the system changes.” (Mary Wimbury, Care Forum Wales).