Member Article

Wetherby-based medical software firm launched to the NHS

Wetherby-based firm BlackBox Medical has developed new medical software which is being launched to the NHS and GP practices.

The software toolkit devised in Yorkshire enables GP’s and hospitals across England to work closely together to ensure patient discharge information is monitored for accuracy and timeliness.

BlackBox Clinical Data Validation, which was launched this month, aims to solve the problem of inaccurate, late or non-existent discharge information from hospitals, which can seriously threaten the health of patients.

It is already being deployed in County Durham.

Graham Poulter, the managing director of BlackBox Medical, who has developed the ground-breaking software and issued a White Paper on what it can achieve, believes it will revolutionise patient safety and care as well as saving the NHS much-needed money.

He said: “The lack of accurate patient discharge information from hospitals has been one of the most serious problems within the NHS for far too long”.

“A few years ago, the NHS Alliance warned that ‘We cannot continue to risk patient safety, nor can we continue to fund avoidable re‐admissions, simply because too many hospitals regularly fail to get critical information to GPs when their patients are discharged. The present situation is inconsistent, high-risk and unacceptable.’

“Nothing has changed. Numerous articles in the medical press over the last couple of years have graphically highlighted the problem, with frustrated doctors complaining about inaccurate, late and non-existent discharge letters compromising, inexcusably, the health of their patients.

“Now local partnerships between GP Practices, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and Commissioning Support Units (CSUs) can swiftly resolve fundamental operational issues which undermine patient safety. There is no longer any excuse for accepting poor or non-existent discharge information, in the general practice clinical records.”

Mr Poulter concluded: “In this context, our BlackBox software is being launched at a most opportune time. It solves, with the minimum of fuss or expenditure, one of the most pressing problems within the NHS.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .