NCRS will make corrections easier, says minister

Corrections to electronic health records will be easier when the NHS Care Records Service (NCRS) is available and problems caused by incorrect data being held on unconnected systems will disappear, health minister, Caroline Flint, has said.

Flint was replying to detailed questions left unanswered during an adjournment debate in the Commons last month when Wycombe MP, Paul Goodman, raised the case of his constituent, NHS practice manager, Helen Wilkinson, who tried and failed to have corrections made to her medical record.

Flint conceded that arrangements for correcting factual errors that applied in the past need to be improved.

Wilkinson also asked to have her records kept out of national systems and found that the only way to achieve this was to opt-out of NHS care.

In the debate, the minister assured the MP that the government did ‘not envisage any circumstances’ where a patient’s decision to have some or all of their health record deleted would lead to them being de-registered from the NHS – a point she underlined in her response to his detailed questions.

The minister’s response was, however, unclear about how this would be achieved. “We will be looking very closely at the circumstances where it may be appropriate for patients to have this choice in consultation with organisations representing the interests of patients, citizens and health professionals,” she said.

Flint also underlined her ‘grave reservations’ about the consequences for individuals who opt-out and them find themselves in situations where care has to be given in an emergency.

Goodman asked what would happen to his constituent if she was taken to hospital in an emergency. Would notes made at the time go into NHS computer systems? Would she have to leave the NHS all over again to get any new records removed?

The minister replied: “The question is not whether a patient must leave the NHS – this will never be necessary – but whether or not the NHS has to keep records, which it does. The only way to avoid the creation of NHS records is to avoid NHS care.

“Patients cannot be given the right to choose how these records are kept regardless of the cost and the impact on the care of other patients.”

Answering the specific question posed by Goodman, she wrote: “In practice, in the example you describe, your constituent would in effect be ‘re-entering’ the NHS but she would be able to ask for the record of her treatment to be removed from the NCRS.”

The questions and answers, which cover five pages, also explore the use of ‘sealed envelopes’ in records, confidentiality and security through the use of legitimate relationships and role-based access to records.