GP TechLead

During the Covid-19 lockdown, the NHS was doing some big deals. One such deal was with Microsoft to provide all their staff with Office 365. This includes their email services but also 1TB cloud storage, video-conferencing software and importantly their suite of Office programs. This includes their well known MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more. This was agreed from the 15th June 2020 and will last until April 2023, though hopefully longer.  Those who have used these suite of programs recently may already know, but if you want to use the latest edition of Word, Excel or PowerPoint, you will now need an ongoing subscription. There is no longer a yearly release of these programs that you would purchase as a one-off, now you purchase a Microsoft 365 subscription that will allow you to download the newest edition of these programs. This allows you to use the online, desktop or mobile office apps. Personal subscriptions start at £59.99/year but with this NHS collaboration with Microsoft,

Sometimes in the course of the day as a GP, you may have occasional need to edit a drug chart (like palliative care drug doses) or change a document on EMIS. If you have printed out a drug chart then you could just write on the chart with pen, but you leave no auditable electronic trail. You could recreate the document but that may take up more time, and still may leave the wrong document up on the system. What I think is better is to edit a saved Word document on EMIS, which will leave a audit trail on the patients notes and hopefully minimise wasted time. Below is the process on how to edit a saved MS Word document on the patient notes on EMIS.  Have the patient consultation screen open and click on their documents tab.  On the document / drug chart you need to edit, right click to open up the menu and left click 'Edit'.  On the MS Word screen, do the edits that you need to.  Then click on the File button in the top left of the screen, and click 'Save As'. On the nex

Cryptocurrency is the new financial trend at the moment. One month ago, it was at new record highs, with Bitcoin and Ethereum each having peak market caps of $1.1 trillion and $470 billion respectively. However in the last 7 days, a crash occurred which wiped 50% off their respective market caps. This volatility is part and parcel of cryptocurrency and I don't see this ending any time soon. But I do see some cryptocurrencies breaking out and sticking around for the long term, it will all depend on their fundamentals, institutional adoption, governmental regulation and ease of use. One of these is Bitcoin (BTC), and below I'll go over why I think it could possibly stick around for the future, and possible reasons why it wont.  The blockchain If you transfer some cash such as £100 from one bank account to another, a bank or financial institution is doing all the back-end work. It has to check a private ledger of your account; to make sure you have £100 then possibly contact the

As a parent, there are several topical parenting questions. One such popular question is “Will you give your child a smartphone?”. When I was young the old Nokias that could play snake was very popular, but I never got a phone until I was in 6 th form (and it was not a snazzy Nokia). I guess parents back then did not have the dilemma they have now.

I created an app, very basic and first one on Flutter. I hope to develop more slick versions but it was said to just get your first one out so you know the process of creating, uploading and publishing an app to the App stores. I have only published it to the Google Play store as I don't plan on paying £99 a year just for the privilage of uploading to the Apple App store but if I do create another app, I likely will. It has very basic functions but I find it useful as a reference tool to see what are the current guidelines for cancer referrals in primary care. Give it a download and give it a review if you think its good! Please click here to check out the app!

The government and NHS have released their new Covid-19 app. After their disastrous trial on the Isle of Wight, it can be assumed that things have been ironed out enough to roll out for general release. It works via Apple's/Googles Covid-19 API which allows phones to handshake each other over Bluetooth. This API is only provided to healthcare authorities so other app developers aren't able to exploit it to make other apps. It takes the much talked about de-centralised approach to contact tracing, meaning that in theory, the app developer/government wont know which users have been in contact. Countries trying to do the centralised approach have been struggling as Apple refused to let app developers meddle with the Bluetooth settings so have had to adopt this de-centralised approach. Below is the rough blueprint of the two systems.