Scotland plans Key Information Summary

NHS National Services Scotland has announced it will develop a Key Information Summary that will be fully integrated with its Emergency Palliative Care Summary record.

Speaking at the BCS Health Scotland conference, Jonathan Cameron, programme manager of the National Information Systems Group for NHS NSS, told E-Health Insider that the new summary would build on the success of the EPCS but would add considerably more information to the record.

Cameron said: “The Key Information Summary (KIS) aims to replace paper notes being faxed from GP practices to NHS24, provide support for electronic anticipatory care plans, long term conditions and mental health by utilising the existing EPCS infrastructure.”

The summary will include four new sections. Special Notes will give GPs the ability to add free text to records and any additional information that care providers may need to know. Current Situation will give an overview of the patients’ main diagnosis and current illness.

Care and Support will provide information on home care support, guardianship and power of attorney. And Information and Action for A&E and out-of-hours will provide information on areas such as resuscitation requests.

Earlier this year, NHS NSS began rolling out the palliative care summary within the Emergency Care Summary, which is now provided to more than 25% of the population.

Cameron added: “We’re still going to keep the palliative element, that’s very important for OOH and NHS 24 in particular, but we’re going to have a system that provides more of the right information [without being] the entire patient record.

“Users of the ECS and KIS will include NHS24, all OOH, A&E acute receiving units, and now the Scottish Ambulance units as well.”

NHS NSS said it will not be going out to tender for the summary but will instead place a requirement on vendors to adapt existing systems.

“At the moment we’re in the very early discussions with suppliers and are just trying to ensure that this all makes sense.

"We’ve received very positive noises from the two main suppliers in Scotland -InPractice and EMIS – and we’re going to sit down with our end user system suppliers very soon,” Cameron added.