250,000 registered for NHS smartcards

Over a quarter of a million health service staff have now registered for an NHS smartcard, according to Connecting for Health (CfH).

The cards give staff access to a range of programs and applications including Choose and Book and the Electronic Prescriptions Service (EPS).

On average, the number of NHS staff in England registered for a smartcard has been increasing by around 2-3000 every week since March, CfH says.

The new total marks a 185,000 increase since the end of August 2005.

The cards are used to protect the security and confidentiality of patients’ personal and healthcare information. In addition the smartcard helps to enforce the policy of role-based access to records. They determine who has access to a patient’s record, and which parts of that record can be seen.

Smartcards are issued by local Registration Authorities in the NHS, which administer the registration process and ensure that security standards are upheld.

To register, staff are required to have their identity checked, providing at least three different proofs of ID. They choose a unique passcode, known only to them, to use in conjunction with the smartcard. Each Scard is printed with the user’s name, photograph and unique user identity number.