New group will promote patient access to records

A group has been set up to raise awareness of patient record access nationally and internationally and increase the take-up of patient access to records by patients and practices in the NHS.

The Record Access Collaborative, which is being run by south east London GP Brian Fisher and funded by GP computer supplier EMIS, aims to bring together patients, clinicians, IT suppliers and NHS organisations with the aiming of making record access more widely available and maximising the benefits that flow from it.

Dr Fisher has pioneered patient access to records for more than 20 years and is a director of Patient Electronic Records Systems (PAERS), a company which provides patient access to electronic records via kiosks in the surgery and also online.

Dr Fisher said the aim of the group was to bring together all interested parties both in the UK and abroad to work collaboratively rather than competitively.

He told EHI Primary Care: “Obviously there are conflicts of interest because we are trying to do something in the NHS and there are also private companies involved. However even though this is funded by EMIS the point is to bring lots of disparate people together including other suppliers so that we can encourage communication and learn from each other.”

Dr Fisher said NHS Connecting for Health was working closely with the collaborative and would be meeting with them twice in the next month or so. Others involved include the NHS Alliance, the Patient Information Forum, patient groups as well as organisations and individuals pioneering patient access in countries including the US and Australia.

Dr Fisher added: “It feels that this area of record access is suddenly opening up in the UK. Healthspace is developing its model of record access which will enable people to access their summary record eventually and we have been able to make a number of other strides with record access.”

In England a handful of EMIS practices have begun piloting electronic access to patient records over the internet using PAERS with a few patients in each practice accessing their full record, as reported by EHI Primary Care earlier in the year.

Dr Fisher said that he hoped that over the next three months that project would be extended to cover 1000 patients and then become available nationally. The collaborative’s goal is to recruit 10,000 patients and 100 practices by September next year. PAERS is also working with InPS to make its kiosks available in InPS practices.

Dr Fisher added: “This is really quite powerful. For example a patient could use it to go into an outpatient’s department or accident and emergency and show their full record to a consultant or if they were in Australia they could do the same. It offers substantial functionality to enhance safety enormously.”

The collaborative also wants to see the development of national standards for record access and has written to Harry Cayton, chair of the Care Record Development Board and Professor Martin Severs, chairman of the NHS Information Standards Board, to suggest a team led by the royal colleges is established to produce such guidelines.

Dr Fisher added: “We would certainly be happy to co-operate in doing that. We believe patient record access is transformative technology that can make a really significant difference to health care.”

A workshop on patient record access organised by the Patient Information Forum will be held at BMA House on 2 October. Information on record access is being hosted on the International Council on Medical and Care Compunetics site here.