# Full patient records to be available online under NHS IT shake-up



## Northerner (Dec 28, 2018)

All NHS patients in England will be able to book GP appointments online, order repeat prescriptions and access their full medical history on a new cloud system as part of a shake-up of IT systems.

The changes, which aim to replace outdated IT technology and improve digital coordination between parts of the healthcare system, should allow GPs, ambulance services and other primary care providers to access patient records digitally in real time.

The announcement is the first major alteration to the NHS patient record system since a failed £12.7bn digitalisation project to link up the healthcare system, which was scrapped by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2011.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...ent-records-available-online-government-plans

Prepare for chaos and hacking/data breach scandals...


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## grovesy (Dec 28, 2018)

I will only believe this when it actually arrives.


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## trophywench (Dec 28, 2018)

Hear hear, grovesey!


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## khskel (Dec 29, 2018)

Should be up and fully functional about the same time as the cure arrives.


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## grovesy (Dec 29, 2018)

khskel said:


> Should be up and fully functional about the same time as the cure arrives.


Yeah.


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## mikeyB (Dec 29, 2018)

It will go in the same direction as all the other IT projects. The reason they all fail is because they know the current system doesn’t work very well, but the big IT providers just provide what they think the client wants. There’s nobody to tell them precisely what is wanted, because nobody knows.

And this all comes out of the NHS budget with no clinical gain.


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## grovesy (Dec 29, 2018)

Too true.
Systems unable to communicate with each other.


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## Karsten (Jan 5, 2019)

this is already available on the existing System One system but its disabled by most surgeries as they don't want it.


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## AndBreathe (Jan 5, 2019)

Our surgery uses the SystemOne package, and it works fairly well.  We don't have access to our full medical records, but to the coded record (like a summary), so every consultation, diagnosis and so on, is there to view, along with test results, vaccination lists, repeat prescription details and the ability to re-order, including ad-hoc, extraordinary items.  What we don't have access to is any contextual notes made by the Doc, or correspondence between the surgery and specialists, ior whatever.

I like it and use it, although I would prefer full access, after all it is my own data, and I can access it anyway, if I ask nicely, and pay the Data Subject Access fee.

The thing is, the senior partner had no idea such a thing existed, until I told him.  It came up in the context that he had written up some blood papers for tests and suggested I called for the results in about a week.  He was utterly astonished when I told him I'd just look online for them.

Of course, I'm not suggesting everyone should know everything about their systems, but with overworked  reception staff would surely be happy to have fewer patients calling for results, for several days until they arrive.


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## grovesy (Jan 5, 2019)

Not all surgeries allow access to blood results even though system has facility. My surgery has a set time and separate line for blood results.


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## trophywench (Jan 5, 2019)

grovesy said:


> Not all surgeries allow access to blood results even though system has facility. My surgery has a set time and separate line for blood results.



Ours used to - well it still does for folk without computer access, they will only give them to you by phone on a Tuesday lunchtime between 12 noon and 2pm, otherwise you have to make an appointment with someone qualified and a complete waste of everyone's time.  For a number of years, they were transferring test results over bit by bit so didn't give us access to them.  By now I can look at test results for the last few years - husband says his go back to 2013.  There again some years he doesn't need any tests at the GP LOL

We don't have any access to clinical notes.

Years ago I went to a round table discussion at DUK HQ who wanted our views on something specific (can't recall what, now!)  We finished in good time, so they threw something else at us without prior warning.  The thing was Did we want access to our own medical records and whatever we replied, why?

I was halfway round the table, everyone before me answered Yes and gave sound reasons of when they'd be very useful- like before annual reviews so if you see something's awry you can think about it, investigate what if anything it appears you can do about it - and this discuss it with whoever's doing the review, make a plan to go forward with,  etc etc.  My turn - I said Yes for all the reasons already given but primarily because they are MINE - not anyone else's and the custodians of my test results don't have my permission not to share them with me.  Everyone laughed and most were appreciative.

I could see the elderly T2 lady in the next seat getting agitated - she was absolutely horrified because she regarded everything about her health to be the sole responsibility of the NHS and her responsibility was to religiously follow their instructions, not to query them or anything else, so she saw no need whatsoever to have access.

That was only round about 8 years ago.

Oh 'eck ………..


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## mikeyB (Jan 5, 2019)

I can well understand why surgeries don’t want folk to have complete access to their medical records. Routine blood tests, fine. In Scotland, I could check my latest HbA1c and renal function on DiabetesMyWay as soon as the GP would be able to see them. 

What more do folk want, and why?


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## trophywench (Jan 5, 2019)

I'd be exceedingly interested to see what my GP has recorded about my problem with statins myself since he still doesn't acknowledge that it could happen AFAIK, Mike.  

In any event at that time I didn't have access to blood and urine test results, let alone anything else - it is mainly the test results though since English people have never had 'My diabetes My way' - and it had been available to patients in Scotland for a while already then, adding insult to injury.  Hence I was already a bit miffed about the subject.

Other things though - like when I got a strongly worded letter saying this was the third appointment for something I'd cancelled twice already - when I'd never even been told about them, let alone cancelled them.  Only on Thursday in the waiting room was a chap who'd turned up to have whatever scan he was sposed to be having that day at that time - when the sonographer told him he'd already cancelled two dates in December and he hadn't got any other appointment.  He'd had to book a day off work and having been told 'computer says no' and that his only option was to see his own GP again and get referred again - he wasn't exactly either happy or impressed.  This is a service for a number of local GP surgeries so if his surgery told him his appointment would be this Thursday and he hadn't had anything else from anywhere ……


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## Karsten (Jan 6, 2019)

you can now ask for all your records.. for FREE!
the rules recently changed.
more people should do it and then the surgeries will get fed up printing them out and not being able to charge for it.
Then they will download them to CDs, give access online
and maybe a lot more careful about ignoring results and make sure they document their actions or non actions..

I found out my salt levels were below the bottom level on 2 tests and nothing was mentioned as they only looked at ha1BC
my platelets were reducing too and were at 91.. GP didn't think being at 151 was notable even tho lower limit is 150.  third test after me raising it as issue was 91.
Last test showed 159 after 2 months of metyl B12
I suggest every one should ask for their records..
you may well see things your GP might have missed.
It would make the NHS better in the long run.


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## Karsten (Jan 6, 2019)

mikeyB said:


> I can well understand why surgeries don’t want folk to have complete access to their medical records. Routine blood tests, fine. In Scotland, I could check my latest HbA1c and renal function on DiabetesMyWay as soon as the GP would be able to see them.
> 
> What more do folk want, and why?



Some folk want their legal right to full access to their records as defined in law?  
They are their records after all.
Why wouldn't GPs want you to see your records?  
What have they got to hide?


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## AndBreathe (Jan 6, 2019)

mikeyB said:


> I can well understand why surgeries don’t want folk to have complete access to their medical records. Routine blood tests, fine. In Scotland, I could check my latest HbA1c and renal function on DiabetesMyWay as soon as the GP would be able to see them.
> 
> What more do folk want, and why?



Personally, Mike, I would like access, as a person who is engaged in their health.  That my education means I understand much of what is in there is just a slightly less usual aside.  It's my data.  It's the story of aspects oif my life, and it is mine.

A couple of years ago, whilst looking back through my record for a particular test result, I encountered an error in my record.  I had had a tumour removed from a breast, which transpired to be Fibromatosis.  My albeit rare, but benign fibromatosis was coded as a primary carcinoma.  It's fair to say that discovery took the edge off my day.  The Practise Manager told me it didn't matter because it looked like the Dr's notes were clearer, but I couldn't see those.  She backed up her approach by saying the coder probably didn't know how to code it, bieng a bit unusual and all that), sp picked what looked closest to her.  Nice

I don't consider for an instant that any of the people at my practise were up to anything disingenuous or sinister in recording that I had been diagnosed with cancer when I had not (thankfully I had seen the original histo-path report, so could be comforted by that), but it was pretty shabby.  My health insurers are sometimes difficult enough in supporting claims, without that little gem coming out of the woodwork at some point when I might not be in such a decent place to deal with it.

I don't think it should be mandatory that individuals read their records, and of course there already exists arrangements that can be brought into play if it is felt that exposure to the records would be detrimental to an individual's well-being.

All it is is transparency isn't it?


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## mikeyB (Jan 6, 2019)

I would rather not have my full medical records digitised for my perusal for the simple reason that I’ve yet to come across anNHS system that is properly secure. And as the cloud based system is supplied by Google, who I wouldn’t trust with time of day, I’m even more reluctant. Information is money - that’s how Facebook works. 

You may not wish to see your full medical record, but others would love to.


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## AndBreathe (Jan 7, 2019)

mikeyB said:


> I would rather not have my full medical records digitised for my perusal for the simple reason that I’ve yet to come across anNHS system that is properly secure. And as the cloud based system is supplied by Google, who I wouldn’t trust with time of day, I’m even more reluctant. Information is money - that’s how Facebook works.
> 
> You may not wish to see your full medical record, but others would love to.



I do fully agree with you on the security aspect, Mikey, but the current system isn't secure either.  When a consultant in a private hospital rejects the print outs of aspects of my medical records I had taken with me for the consultation, on the grounds he had hacked into my records.

Now, I have a theory about how he achieved that, and in that instance, as it made things easier in a complex consultation, I went along with it.

But, yes.  Security is a potential issue.  We don't use Siri and have shut Alexa off crom the Amazon kit.

I guess where I am is that systems will change and improve.


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## Madeline (Jan 7, 2019)

I have full access to results and basic consult/prescription information. I would much prefer to have full access, I think the chances of errors are extremely high - years ago I spotted by chance that a GP had recorded my youngest daughter as having a scalded thigh which was being denied by us. She actually had impetigo, I can see how the error occurred, but the initial suspicion should have been immediately corrected, particularly as there were zero safeguarding concerns. Just makes me wonder what else is in them, if I spotted that by chance.


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