Asked by: Lord Borwick (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, following the WannaCry ransomware attack on the NHS, what instructions were provided to (1) NHS, and (2) Public Health England (PHE), staff about the importance of software updates; what assessment they have made of whether the PHE Excel errors, resulting in COVID-19 cases being unreported, were related to a lack of software updates; and what plans they have to ensure that PHE uses appropriate database software to record and analyse COVID-19 data in future.
Answered by Lord Bethell
All health and care organisations that have access to National Health Service patient data must annually complete NHS Digital’s Data Security and Protection Toolkit. The Protection Toolkit includes guidance on how to manage out of date software. To meet the standard required, organisations must operate on supported systems or have plans in place to mitigate the risk such as segregating those machines from the network. NHSX and NHS Digital are also supporting NHS organisations to upgrade their existing Microsoft Windows operating systems to Windows 10 and to deploy Advanced Threat Protection. This gives oversight of cyber activity at device level across the NHS and whether they have installed updated software to protect them from cyber threats.
Asked by: Lord Borwick (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many fax machines are regularly used in the NHS.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Fax machines and associated consumables were removed from the NHS Supply Chain catalogue in January 2019, and we continue to support the National Health Service with digital transformation to remove the need for outdated technology, including fax machines.
We have not requested further information on fax machine usage from trusts during the COVID-19 outbreak, in order to reduce the burden on systems.
Asked by: Lord Borwick (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress NHS England has made to commission MR-guided focused ultrasound for patients with essential tremor.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
NHS England is part way through the process of developing a clinical commissioning policy for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) for treating essential tremor. Stakeholder engagement will be taking place in the next few weeks. If there is a need for additional investment to support the introduction of this new service this will be considered in the next relative prioritisation round, alongside other interventions requiring new investment.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published interventional procedure guidance on the use of MRgFUS as a treatment for essential tremor in June 2018. A copy of Unilateral MRI-guided focused ultrasound thalamotomy for treatment-resistant essential tremor is attached.