Detailed Care Records for 3.5m patients

More than 3.5m patients in Yorkshire and the Humber now have a Detailed Care Record for primary and community care, in one of the lesser-known success stories of the National Programme for IT in the NHS.

The records form part of a fully operational DCR, with information being shared between general practice, community and child health systems.

According to figures supplied to EHI Primary Care, Yorkshire and the Humber has 100% of primary care trust community teams, 40% of GP practices and approaching 100% of child health teams using TPP’s SystmOne, supplied by its local service provider, Computer Sciences Corporation.

NHS East of England is close behind, with 3.4m patients on the system, followed by NHS East Midlands (2m) and the NHS North East (1.2m).

In an exclusive interview with EHI Primary Care, Tony Megaw, head of primary care IT for NHS Yorkshire and the Humber , estimated that the DCR created by SystmOne was now being used by as many as 50% of primary care NHS staff in the strategic health authority’s area.

He said: “The NPfIT vision of integrated, detailed care records improving patient care is a reality in Yorkshire and the Humber.”

Megaw said that figures for the last two months showed that out of 18,000 community staff in the SHA, a total of 9,000 were logging on to the system. “That’s 50% of staff who are regularly using the system,” he said.

Megaw said there had been “things to resolve” on data sharing but that the SHA was already beginning to see the clinical and business benefits of data sharing and integrated records.

Megaw said that subject to PCTs’ Operating Framework plans, the SHA expected a further 100 practices to migrate to SystmOne by March 2010, bringing the number of practices with the LSP service to more than 50%.

He added: “We are feeling good and if you look at Lord Darzi’s vision of quality care covering three areas – patient safety, patient experience and the effectiveness of care – we feel it is demonstrable that the DCR is helping to deliver on all of those.”

Megaw said that while there was some integration with secondary care for patients with diabetes and palliative care, the SHA was waiting for the delivery of Lorenzo into acute hospitals, subject to CSC’s current contract negotiations.

Megaw said the plan was then to integrate SystmOne as part of release 3 of the so-called Penfield strategy for the roll-out of Lorenzo, although no date has been set for this yet.

The full interview with Tony Megaw is available here.