DH group to look at wider NHS CRS access

The Department of Health has convened a group to look at widening access to the NHS Care Records Service including representatives from patients, nurses and pharmacists, according to Prof Michael Thick, Connecting for Health’s chief clinical officer.

Prof Thick told last week’s Pharmaceutical Journal that the representative group was made up of various parties with a legitimate interest in the widening of access to the NCRS.

He said the case for community pharmacists’ access to electronic care records had been made and the DH was now reviewing the issue to decide how much of the record should be seen by pharmacists.

According to the Pharmaceutical Journal, Prof Thick could not give an estimate of when any decisions would be made but confirmed that meetings had started.

Issues which are being tackled include ensuring patient consent and confidentiality in a community pharmacy setting.

Plans to extend access to the NCRS were outlined in the Primary and Community Care Strategy published two weeks ago which suggested that access could be extended to others including social care bodies, voluntary and private sector organisations and pharmacy, dental and optical services.

The same stance is underlined in the Health Informatics Review report, published last week, which says the NCRS needs to embrace other providers of care to NHS-funded patients “including social care, voluntary care organisations, independent sector treatment centres, hospices and local dental and opticians’ services.”

The Informatics Review adds: “We need to look at how we can best meet the needs of those service providers, their patients and staff and also how we ensure that all providers adopt the same high standards of information governance and confidentiality. This is a condition of access to NHS records.”

The review recommends that national plans should address the exchange of patient information with independent and voluntary sector providers and with social care.

It adds: “Future local planning guidance will emphasise the need for the inclusion of plans for non-NHS service providers, including the independent and voluntary sectors as partners in the use of information and IT to deliver services to NHS-funded patients.”

The Informatics Review, however, also acknowledges that more needs to be done to boost the confidence of NHS staff and patients in the NHS’ ability to look after patient data.

It says: “A campaign is needed to raise awareness and improve public and staff confidence in the security and safeguarding of personal information by the NHS. This should include patient and public involvement in the design and delivery of the campaign and focus on more explanation of the protection methods being used and the risk management approach being adopted.”

The Review recommends that the campaign should be overseen by the National information Governance Board for Health and Social Care.