NHS Spine reaches one billion monthly transactions for the first time

The NHS Spine has reached one billion transactions in a month for the first time.

Developed and maintained by NHS Digital and their SME partners, the Spine allows information to be shared securely through national services such as the Electronic Prescription Service, Summary Care Records and the e-Referral Service.

It currently supports the IT infrastructure for over 500,000 health and social care workers in England.

NHS Digital said the latest one billion transaction shows a growing demand in digital services across the sector, with the platform handling at peak 3,500 messages a second.

The Spine supports 28,000 healthcare IT systems in 21,000 care organisations across the country, providing secure access to over 65 million summary care records and 92 million personal demographic records.

Further additions coming soon to the Spine include the National Record Locator Service, GP Connect and Digital Child Health.

Rob Shaw, deputy CEO and managing director of platforms, infrastructure and live services, at NHS Digital, said, “It’s such an exciting time for technology and as uptake of digital services and applications continues to build, vital infrastructure like the Spine must continuously evolve to meet the demand of our NHS staff 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

“Bringing the system in-house and building it entirely on open source software has allowed us to make quick and easy changes to keep up. We’re now two years running delivering regular releases and providing highly available service.”