Liberating the NHS: An Information Revolution

The Coalition Government has come to power with an aim to restructure the provision of healthcare in England. It has published an introductory white paper and several subsequent consultation papers. This document offers a précis of the consultation on ‘An Information Revolution’.

This consultation deals with the provision of relevant information provision for patients and the public to enable them to make informed choices about their care building on the premises of ‘no decision about me without me’. It also discusses the sharing of information between professionals. In order to provide information the right data needs to be collected, including patient outcomes and patient experience. The information revolution aims to collect and analyse the information that we have and utilise it better for the delivery of health and social care.

Many of the critical priorities outlined in “Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS” rely on the provision of reliable and accurate information to patients, the public and care professionals.

The government is recommending more openness, transparency and comparability.  Information is a vital part of their vision for better care to enable patients and the public to actively participate in their care by having access to their own health and care records so they can make informed decisions with care professionals. There is a need to develop standards for the recording of care.

Different people and groups in society access information differently and need it presented in different ways.  The aim is to ensure the right information is available and presented in a relevant way to those who could otherwise be excluded. The government is looking for information about health and care services to be more innovative and for information to be available for care professionals to help them improve services and achieve healthcare outcomes that are among the best in the world.

This is likely to lead to a changing role for health and care professionals as they become more responsible for the provision of accurate and robust data and help patients and the public to interpret the data they are presented with.

Points of issue

  • The sharing of information between care professionals is vital to ensure patients receive the best treatment at the right time.  The government states that the information relies on ‘accurate and up-to-date health and care records’. It is not clear how this sharing of information will be supported with the current limitations of the summary care record.
  • Data has to be collected for a purpose and it should only be collected once, at the point of care provision, and used in a number of ways. Any systems and data collection must enhance patient safety.
  • There is a question on whether we have the right systems in place currently within the NHS to manage the huge amount of data that will be collected. There are also questions around how this data will be analysed and reported back. We would want to work with Connecting for Health to ensure maximum efficiency in uptake of data / information on to patient records.
  • Pharmacy system suppliers will need to make sure they are set up to collect the data required and ensure that they move towards interoperability with other NHS systems
  • With the provision of information being widespread, patients and the public may get confused. There should be standardised information available in a format that avoids any confusion in the minds of patients and the public.
  • The role of data provision for commissioners needs to be highlighted as this will become one of the major functions of information collection. A large amount of resource will be required to monitor and record performance of service providers.
  • The consultation focuses on the provision of information electronically and this will not be accessible to a certain percentage of the population
  • Currently NHS Direct has a fourth disposition which enables referral to community pharmacy but this does not appear to be part of the 111 system which is being implemented.

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