# Going paperless 'would save NHS billions'



## Northerner (Jan 16, 2013)

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt wants the NHS to be paperless by 2018 - a move a report says could help save the health service billions of pounds a year.

In a speech, Mr Hunt will say a first step is to give people online access to their health records by March 2015.

And by April 2018, any crucial health information should be available to staff at the touch of a button.

PwC suggests a potential ?4.4bn could be put back into the NHS with better use of information and technology.

This information technology revolution has been long in the offing.

It was Mr Hunt's predecessor Andrew Lansley who first pledged in 2010 to start an information revolution to ensure patients could use the web to report their experiences, rate NHS organisations and access their records so there would be "no decision about me, without me".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21033984

These things always seem to assume that everyone has access to the internet


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## Vicsetter (Jan 16, 2013)

Any supposed saving would be gobbled up by expenditure on IT consultants writing more rubbish software for the NHS.  Not to mention the increase time that GPs would have to spend typing up notes, instead of scribbling them down.


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## Northerner (Jan 16, 2013)

Vicsetter said:


> Any supposed saving would be gobbled up by expenditure on IT consultants writing more rubbish software for the NHS.  Not to mention the increase time that GPs would have to spend typing up notes, instead of scribbling them down.



Absolutely - the NHS computerisation project was the biggest in the world and was abandoned. Some of the dreadful project management I heard about would make you weep - massive waste at every stage. 

Plus, they have been talking about the 'paperless office' since the early 1980s - last place I worked used tons of it!


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## trophywench (Jan 16, 2013)

Attending a meeting at DUK - about something else, about 12 months ago  - at the end of the scheduled agenda we were asked the question - did we WANT to have access to our health records?

Most did, one was vehemently against it.  I didn't understand that attitude at all.  I hadn't spoken till then and said that I'd find it really useful, if you want to plot your test results firstly, to have instant access would be great, instead of writing it down somewhere and then losing it, and being annoyed cos you'd really like to know right now this minute how your eg LDL level has changed or whatever it is, and knowing it was exactly there in that spot instead of having to make an appointment and then having to have the discussion about why you want to know, etc.  Waste of a GP's time when it's just cos of this article you've read about some research they've done in Timbuctu that suggests whatever ...... and also for other reasons already given round the table.  

But MAINLY I said - because it's MINE, isn't it?  And there should not be a thing on there that wasn't said to me at the time.  Or couldn't be said to me.  Much like your personnel file at work.

We were all concerned about confidentiality issues though and would want to know exactly who else had access to those records........


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## Vicsetter (Jan 16, 2013)

In Scotland we already have our Diabetes data on-line and if anyone wants a look, good luck to them.  However I wouldn't want my total GP records stored on-line.

in Pulse in response to Mr Hunt's idea, I liked this comment:


> However, Dr Paul Cundy, chair of the GPC?s IT subcommittee and a GP in Wimbledon, south London, branded the savings estimations as ?complete rubbish?.
> 
> He said: ?It is complete rubbish. No one has ever saved any money by implementing an IT system


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## HOBIE (Jan 16, 2013)

I down load info from my pump to nurses all the time !  They can see all info with a couple of button pushes !  Is that not good ? It is 2013


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