Two of six NHS electronic records contracts awarded
National telecommunications provider BT has been awarded a 10-year, £620m contract to set up and run the National Health Service Care Records Service for England.
BT has also been given a 10-year contract worth £996m to provide
systems to access and use the service and local IT support in the London
region. Another company, Accenture, has won a £1,099m 10-year contract
for systems and support in the North East region. Contracts for the North
West & West Midlands, Southern, and Eastern regions will be announced
by the end of the year.
The NHS Care Records Service is intended to hold individual electronic
records for all 50 million NHS patients. The records will show key treatments
and care within both the NHS and social care systems.
The award of the contracts has been welcomed by John D’Arcy, chief
executive of the National Pharmaceutical Association, who sees it as
a step forward. A shared record in a consistent format that each health
professional who needs to access it can see is a good thing, he explained.
But he warned: “The Government must understand that that pharmacists
need access to these records, just like many other health professionals.
We cannot undertake a lot of the planned new roles properly unless we
are linked into the system. We have been told that pharmacists will be
included in the NHSnet, but we have not been told what level of access
we will have.”
Welcoming the announcement, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s,
President, Dr Gill Hawksworth, said: “This is an important step
forwards towards an integrated system of electronic patient records.
For pharmacists, this will be a particularly important move, as it will
potentially resolve some of the most important issues around access to
patient information. Appropriate access to patient information is a vital
tool for pharmacists as they develop their new roles in such areas as
medicines management, repeat prescribing and supplementary and independent
prescribing. Meanwhile, we shall continue to work with patient representatives,
the Department of Health and other stakeholders to develop a framework
for shared records.” |
