Taskforce aims to end NHS care records row

Clinical experts and patients' representatives have been appointed to a new government taskforce aimed at resolving the problems around the delayed rollout of the NHS' national electronic medical records system.

The so-called Care Records Service (CRS) is a central part of the £6.2bn Connecting for Health NHS IT programme but its rollout is running two years late because of disagreements over exactly which patient information should be stored on the electronic record.

Senior clinicians have argued in the British Medical Journal this week that the centrally accessible electronic record is a serious threat to patient confidentiality and incompatible with the GP-patient relationship.

One data security risk highlighted by doctors is the sharing of computer passwords in hospitals, a practice which allows locum doctors to access systems.

The government had proposed for a summary medical record of every patient to be held centrally, containing vital information such as name, address, date of birth and allergies, with other more detailed information held locally that could also be accessed when needed from anywhere in the NHS.

But at a heated Public Accounts Committee last month, MPs heard claims there had been virtually no clinical consultation or input into the specifications for the records before the contracts went out to tender.

Health minister Lord Warner has now formed the NHS Summary Care Records Taskforce to aid the first phase of the rollout of the service and address "outstanding issues and concerns".

The taskforce will be chaired by Harry Clayton, national director for patients and the public at the Department of Health, and members will include representatives from the British Medical Association, the College of Emergency Medicine, the Royal College of GPs, the Royal College of Nurses and patients' representatives.

In conjunction with Connecting for Health the taskforce will draw up an agreed plan for the implementation of the CRS following the initial rollout to a small number of locations in early 2007.

The taskforce will also consider the workings of the US Veterans' Administration electronic health record system, which holds a summary record for some 23 million US ex-servicemen and women.