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Webwatch
June 2006
National Programme for IT in the NHS
"Every patient in England should soon be able to book their hospital appointment online at their local GP surgery." says the BBC website at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3171920.stm
This is part of the roll-out of a huge IT project, which when finished, will effect huge changes in the way that records, appointments and medical data are handled. There is a lot of information available if you look at www.dh.gov.uk/Home/fs/en and follow the link to Delivery of electronic patient records. That is just a small part of this project but is already working in some parts of the country under the title Choose and Book. It even has its own website at www.chooseandbook.nhs.uk.
The whole project comes under the National Programme for IT in the NHS which is described on www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk.
Even a quick look at the A-Z on www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/atoz will show just how all-encompassing this project is. It would be a mistake to think of it as simply sitting in your GP's surgery and booking an appointment on-line.
For instance, another part of the project is called the Care Records Service where patient health care records will be stored on computers rather than in the bulky (and sometimes lost) sets of patient notes. Provided that the systems do not fail and that the staff have the right abilities and training to access the system, all your records will be available on-line even if you need to see someone whilst away from your local hospital. Likewise, if you need an appointment at different ends of the same hospital, the electronic records should travel faster than the paper ones. Eventually, images such as x-rays, scans etc. will be on-line as part of the "notes", so thay should not go missing either.
The way that prescriptions are managed will also change. The Electronic Prescription Service will allow prescriptions to be transferred electronically between prescribers, dispensers and the Prescription Pricing Authority.
The three parts listed here will have the most direct benefit to patients but there are other parts of the whole project. These are concerned with such things as the management of the NHS, the analysis of service performance and the analysis of health trends across the country.
Once the whole thing has been implemented and all the bugs ironed out, many of the current every day aggravations with the NHS should be gone.
Happy surfing
Howard