Tories would scrap NHS database plans
pharmafile | August 11, 2009 | News story | |Â Â NHS, digi, healthcareÂ
The Conservatives have pledged to scrap the government's plans for a central database of patient records, in order to save money in the NHS.
Instead, their proposals include electronic records being stored locally by GPs and hospitals with patients having online access to their medical records, and firms like Google or Microsoft hosting the information.
The plan follows a review commissioned by the Conservatives into NHS IT, which has long been a subject of controversy as its budget balloons.
Shadow Health Minister Stephen O'Brien added: "Labour's handling of NHS IT has been shambolic. Their top-down, bureaucratic plans have been hugely disruptive to the NHS and have been plagued with delays and cost overruns. Conservatives will not let patients pay the price for the Government's inaction."
Labour's £12 billion NHS programme in England is the world's largest civilian IT scheme, but it has repeatedly hit hurdles since its launch in 2002 and is thought to be five years behind schedule.
It aims to replace hundreds of different computer systems in hospitals and GP practices with compatible versions, allowing staff to access patients' medical records.
The Tories have instead promised NHS trusts a choice of computer systems, rather than imposing a single one. The party's proposals include:
* Seeking to dismantle Labour's central NHS IT infrastructure, delivering its benefits through local systems instead.
* Halting and renegotiating Labour contracts with IT service providers to prevent further inefficiencies.
* A halt to imposing central IT systems on the NHS, instead allowing healthcare providers to use and develop the IT they have already purchased and developed, within a rigorous framework of interoperability.
* Encouraging the use of 'open source' software across the public sector.
NHS Response
NHS Confederation, which represents NHS organisations in the UK, said the report was a useful contribution to the debate about the use of information technology in the NHS, though raised the issue of security.
Chief executive Steve Barnett said: "The service has become increasingly devolved and diverse with patients accessing care from different providers. [We] need national standards so that information can be easily and safely exchanged but with local decision making about how that is delivered.
"Any radical change in direction will have to satisfy concerns over the security of data, the cost of a new approach and the skills mix of people working in the NHS. It needs to be shown to deliver practical, day to day, improvements for patients."
Industry
A centralisation of patient records in the NHS would be helpful for industry as, if given access, companies would find it easier to recruit for clinical trials and there are some moves in this direction.
Later this year a handful of pilot schemes, overseen by the Department for Health, will see existing records brought together to help answer research questions for trial investigators, giving them access to existing patient information.
Records will be collected through the normal care process by the GP or consultant, but the difference is that that the Royal College of Physicians can use it to identify patients anonymously to check their suitability for trials, and then automate the recruitment via the GP or consultant.
Any backtracking on the current efforts by an incoming Tory government could be a blow to researchers.
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