Health written question – answered at on 7 September 2012.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the arrangements for the sharing of patient medical histories between general practitioners and hospitals.
In response to the Department's consultation on ‘Liberating the NHS: An Information Revolution’, professional groups argued for a 21(st)-century person-centred electronic health and social care system, with information recorded once at the first appropriate contact with health and care services and shared across boundaries safely. They argued for a changed national role, allowing greater local innovation and market development in information technology (IT). There was also clear consensus that national standards are needed to allow information to move freely through the health and care system and to inspire trust in that information.
The NHS Future Forum also made a series of recommendations building on this issue—including the need for systems to support joined-up care across the whole health, care and support sector. Service providers and commissioners should ensure that information integrates around the needs of the individual. The national health service and social care services must use IT systems to share data about service users electronically. How this is achieved should be for individual health and care providers to decide, but with common standards. The key requirement is interoperability—IT systems talking to each other—including the adoption of the NHS number across health and social care.
There is still progress to be made, as in many cases IT systems have their own ‘standards' that often do not work with other systems. This is analogous to telecoms companies having their own sets of phone numbers for their network and their own SIM cards that only work with their own phones. Important information tends to be communicated on paper, often after a delay. Systems are often detached from routine professional care, which can lead to frustration and to poor recording of data.
Properly joined-up care needs information systems that talk to each other. This approach, based on nationally set information standards, will enable information to be captured once and shared right across the health and care system. National standards and implementation guidance provide the foundation for the joining up of systems so that health, care and support can move away from solutions that work only in their area. Rather, our information will be able to follow us across organisational boundaries as people move between services, and new innovations and ideas can be taken up.
Concerns over security and privacy issues—and a lack of clarity for professionals in understanding what level of information sharing is permitted—can lead to a culture that is overly risk averse and reluctant to share information at all, even where it would improve our care. The NHS Future Forum work has heard the clear message that:
‘not sharing information has the potential to do more harm than sharing it’.
There is currently an independent review of information governance, led by Dame Fiona Caldicott, that is looking at the balance between protecting people's confidentiality and enabling information to flow across the system for the benefit of patients and service users—and the wider health service. The review is expected to report next year.
There are numerous examples of technology that are transforming care and where professionals are already championing effective information use. Simple examples include the use of secure electronic communication for sharing information between people, as well as more advanced solutions that allow systems to join up. There is a clear need to build on these and free up professionals to innovate and lead, seeing improving and using information as core elements of their job.
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