The Department of Health and Social Care has shared plans to create a “more modern” NHS in which patients have increased ownership over their own medical history, announcing an intention for a single patient record which will bring patient health information, test results and letters together in one place through the NHS App.
To enable this transformation, the UK government is reportedly planning to introduce new laws which will allow patient records to be made available across all NHS trusts, GP surgeries and ambulance services in England.
The government states that supporting data sharing between systems will save “an estimated 140,000 hours of NHS staff’s time every year”.
The conversation around reforming the NHS
Earlier today we reported on the launch of a new portal allowing members of the public, clinicians, and experts to submit feedback and ideas for the future of the NHS, with responses to help shape the government’s 10 Year Health Plan.
HTN explored Lord Darzi’s report into the state of the NHS in detail here with a particular focus on digital and data. Additionally, following the publication of the Darzi review, we sought industry responses from a range of stakeholders from across the health and technology sector.
Other news from the DHSC includes Health Secretary has publicly calling for a tech- and data-driven reform of the NHS and pledging to tackle long waiting lists and create “a digital healthcare service powered by cutting-edge technology”.
At a speech at the Royal College of General Practitioners earlier this month, Streeting also emphasised the role of technology in rebuilding and reforming general practice and emphasising data as “the future of the NHS”.
Digital patient
For a recent HTN Now panel discussion on the topic of patient engagement, we were joined by a panel of experts to talk about current priorities and projects in this space, to share learnings on adopting patient-centred processes and solutions, and to highlight outcomes and challenges around engaging patients with support from digital.
This week, the UK government has shared plans for two reviews exploring patient safety within the health system, examining firstly the roles and remits within six organisations overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care with a “significant” impact on patient safety, with a view to making recommendations on whether a different approach could offer improvements; and secondly focusing on quality and governance.
Also on the topic, NHSE recently published plans around the primary care implementation of the NHS patient safety strategy, noting the role of digital and data in areas such as automatically flagging patient safety issues to support reliability, and supporting clinical decision-making by digitally embedding diagnosis advice and safety netting.
