GPs attack lack of consultation over electronic records
- 21 June 2004
GPs at the British Medical Association’s conference of local medical committees last week slammed the National Programme for IT’s (NPfIT) plans for national electronic care records, passing votes of no confidence in their ability to improve patient care and resolving to “not engage with the Care Record Service" until their concerns are answered. Dr Lucy Henshaw, the representative from Suffolk who proposed the motion, said: “Those in the know do not want us to know what animal they are creating. It must be after negotiation and consultation, and not rushed through." Of the NPfIT, she said: “It won’t just be a £6.1billion white elephant but a woolly mammoth with tusks that will do great damage to the patient-doctor relationship." Other representatives talked of “complete chaos over IT funding” and quantities of training available that were “not good enough". Motions passed concerning the NHS Care Record Service (CRS) and the national programme include a demand for greater clinical representation in the development of the service, a condemnation of “the announcement of the timetable for ICRS (sic) implementation before all the challenges and concerns it raises have been adequately addressed" and an order for more input to local service providers (LSPs). Dr Paul Cundy, chairman of the Joint BMA/Royal College of GPs IT Committee, told E-Health Insider: “It is very unfortunate that we have had to get to this stage but this is the sentiment of grass roots GPs." “In a recent survey, we have found that 61 percent of GPs support the concept of CRS. They don’t support what they have seen so far." Deputy chief medical officer at the Department of Health and joint senior responsible officer for the NPfIT, Professor Aidan Halligan, also came under strong criticism by delegates for being unable to attend a Q&A session after his previous day’s speech about the CRS. In compensation, Halligan made his e-mail address and phone number public for anybody to contact him with any questions, but speakers said that his actions were “patronising” and “insulting". Motions passed at the LMC conference also expressed “grave concern regarding the threat to confidentiality and civil liberties from the care records service”, and vowed that patients must receive full information about everyone who accesses their records and GPs should have greater input into hardware and software used: “No GP practices with an RFA 99 approved clinical system should be coerced into switching system supplier." Resolutions concerning patient choice and e-booking, which were widely expected to cause yet more upsets for the national programme, were not discussed due to time constraints.
