NHS Direct to connect to Spine in 2008

NHS Direct is aiming to connect to the NHS Spine in 2008, in what should be a key step towards integrating the telephone and online advice service with the wider NHS.

In an exclusive interview with E-health Insider, NHS Direct’s new chief executive Matt Tee said, “I’m hoping that we will connect to the Spine in 2008.”

The NHS Direct CEO told EHI that privacy and confidentiality will be key issues. “The question is how do we ensure that we don’t give access to confidential information to someone who would not be entitled to it.” A lot of focus is currently being paid to “caller identity assurance”.

Tee goes on to say connecting with the Spine will be a key step in enabling the health advice service to “better integrate with other parts of the NHS”, particularly on urgent care and the uncheduled services, including out-of-hours services.

Connecting NHS Direct to the NHS Spine, initially the national personal demographic service, would be a first step to enabling NHS Direct-generated records to be passed on to patient’s GPs and incorporated into the embryonic NHS Summary Care Record.

Currently GPs have no record of whether their patient contacted NHS Direct, or of what advice they were given, and subsequent treatment they recieved as a result.

Tee says that once NHS Direct is connected to the Spine it should also become possible to move to “direct booking into GP services or linking into ambulance services”.

Elsewhere in the wide-ranging interview on the future of NHS Direct, Tee talks about the relationship with the new DH patient information initiative NHS Choices – currently the subject of an £80m procurement.

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Jon Hoeksma