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10th
February 2003
NHS
Access Shop at St James's University Hospital Leeds
Description
 The
purpose of the scheme is to provide
a staffed access point in a former Waterstone's Shop Unit based in the
busy Gledhow Wing of St James's Hospital in Leeds. St James's is part
of the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTHT), the largest NHS trust
in the UK. The NHS Access Shop will open on 10th of February serving a
potential population of 27,000 health and social care professional in
Leeds.
The
access shop fulfils a dual function, in that it will provide health professional
with access to a wide range of services. The first of these functions
revolves around ten PC's which are connected to NHSnet providing NHS staff
with easy access to electronic journals and clinical databases as well
as access to ECDL resources and general MS Office applications. The second
function of the access point is to provide NHS staff and the general public
with access to job vacancies and career information.
 A
key consideration of the project brief was to ensure that the physical
security of the hardware was paramount. Firstly the location of the access
shop is located next to a 24-hour security post! As for the physical housing
of the computers a number of solutions were examined, with the solution
from Cafenetix proving to be the favourite, as it not only proved a very
secure unit but also a very elegant one.
Benefits
The background for the NHS Access Point revolves round a myriad of official
documents, and targets. The project is in keeping with objectives outlined
in the NHS Plan and in the Leeds FLIS (Full Local Implementation Strategy)
for Information for Health. The project aims also supported a number of
Trust objectives, including opening job shops and aiming to reduce staff
vacancies as well as its to move towards citizen-focused services, and
also will improve accessibility to information, both for NHS staff and
patients and the public. Other perceived key befits of the project are:
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- helps
Leeds Teaching Hospitals to achieve Government target of making
its services more accessible
- helps
work towards targets for all staff to have NHSnet connectivity
facilities
- help
to reduce vacancies as it is sited in a public area and the passing
traffic are potential future employees
- act
as a pathway towards accreditation for the national 'Improving
Working Lives' standards
- Improved
IT access for staff working towards ECDL and other qualifications
- provide
common access for all Leeds based health staff to National Electronic
Library for Health (NeLH): accredited national information on
treatments, procedures and forms of care
- provide
common access for all Leeds based health staff to on-line databases,
full-text journals, health information and local guidelines journals,
health information and local guidelines
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Conclusion
The NHS Access Shop will open for the first time on 10th February
2003. Currently the project is very much pioneering a new way of providing
access to a range of services. A process of monitoring will start, to
see if the project has met its stated aims and objectives and ultimately
to decide if the project is a success.
For more information, please do not hesitate to contact Christopher Walker
on 0113 39 28417 or email christopher.walker@leedsth.nhs.uk
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