18/12/06 - Government accepts recommendations from the report of the Ministerial Taskforce on the Summary Care Record

Recommendations from a taskforce report on the future of electronic NHS patient records, have been accepted by the Government. A pilot programme will run from Spring 2007. The 14 recommendations cover implementation, patient access and consent, data quality, training for staff, equity and health inequalities, urgent care, the oversight of early adopter sites and their evaluation, and public information. Specifically, patients would be invited to correct or amend their record and offer explicit consent for their record to be shared or to opt out of sharing, should they wish to. The taskforce was established in July 2006 to assist with the introduction of the new electronic NHS Summary Care Record which is part of the NHS Care Records Service and which is being implemented as part of the NHS National Programme for IT. (DH - press release) [BBC news item]