Department of Health written question – answered at on 14 September 2015.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to encourage NHS organisations to communicate with patients electronically.
Changing clinical communications from paper to electronic message is a key digital enabler to sharing information electronically with patients. This includes the requirement that by October 2015, all discharge summaries from acute National Health Service organisations (for both inpatient and day case) to general practitioner practices will no longer be able to be shared via paper/fax and must use an electronic channel. This will enable local organisations to make these available to patients as part of developing their local online and digital services.
Work is being led by the National Information Board to deliver commitments published in its framework for action ‘Personalised Health and Care 2020’ that:
- by 2018, clinicians in primary care, urgent and emergency care and other key transitions of care contexts will be operating without the use of paper records; and
- by 2020, all care records will be digital, real-time and interoperable.
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