The Minster Practice, Lichfield

NHS Computing

National Programme for IT

The Government plans to spend £2.3 billion over the 3 years 2004 -06 on information technology for the NHS. There are 4 key developments:

	Integrated Care Records Service including a nationally accessible core database - the NHS Spine
	Electronic booking system for hospital appointments
	Electronic transfer of prescriptions from GPs to pharmacists
	An IT infrastructure with sufficient connectivity and broadband capacity to meet future NHS needs with the N3 new national network

Integrated Care Records Service

Summary patient records will be held in core national information repository called the NHS Spine. The service is a 3 phase programme due for completion in 2010. Phase 1 starting in 2004 will allow booking of outpatient appointments, communicating and viewing some patient information. Phase 2 to be completed by 2006 will give access to more detailed records including specialist results, GP prescriptions and hospital discharge summaries. Phase 3 extends the service to integrate information between health and social services.

NHS Care Record

This is the latest name for your individual electronic health and social care record which you will have by 2010. BT has been awarded the £620 million contract to run the National Care Records Service and Local Service Provider contracts for various regions are being awarded in early 2004. Basic patient information will be online by late 2004.

Choose and book

A personal view of a GP introduced to the system as available in April 2005: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7499/1093

Previous news items

Monday 21st July 2003: Personal medical information on a huge national database

The government has released the specification for a new national NHS database: the Integrated Care Record System. This will give instant access to everybody's medical records on a single "data spine". The advantage will be eliminating the problem of missing or lost records but at the cost of making the danger of security breaches massive. It is planned that you will not be able to refuse to allow your medical records to be added to the data spine. Patient consent will be sought to allow release of data for further medical treatment. However, as this can be overridden in "exceptional circumstances" it is difficult to see how a patient can control access to the information.
Doctors were not consulted on the use of computers in general practice. At the moment, your information is held on a stand alone system within the surgery so access is as secure as the written records. We will not be able to prevent your information being transferred to the national system. Recently, the Secretary of State for Health sought and received the power to take legal action against any doctor refusing access to the information by anybody authorised by him.

Send mail to webmaster @minster.org.uk with questions or comments about our website. N.B. Website is for practice patients ONLY.
Copyright © 1997-2007 Dr Michael Causer Click here for full copyright notice & site warning.
Homepage last modified: August 25, 2008.