Farewell ICRS, hello NHS Care Record Service

A spokesperson for the NPfIT confirmed to EHI that from now on ICRS will instead be known as the "NHS Care Record Service", a name change intended to more clearly convey to NHS staff and the public what joined-up electronic patient records actually are and do.

The spokesperson confirmed that the Local Service Provider (LSP) contracts due to be signed, for what had until this week been known as ICRS, will now instead be for an "NHS Care Record Service".  The name change is not thought to affect the functionality specified for ICRS.

Providing a brief comment on the imminent contract awards the NPfIT said in a statement: "The National Programme for IT is in the final stages of contract award for the National Application Service Provider and two of the five Local Service Providers to deliver the NHS Care Records Service (formerly known as the Integrated Care Records Service)." 

The NPfIT first began publicly using the term ICRS in June 2002, in its strategy document ‘Delivering 21st Century IT Support’, as a catch-all description of the joined-up electronic care records at the heart of the NHS IT modernisation programme. 

The term ICRS replaced the twin concepts of longitudinal cradle-to-grave electronic health records (EHRs) and horizontal, local Electronic Patient Records (EPRs) that provided the joint focus of the 1998 NHS IT strategy ‘Information for Health’, and subsequently became common parlance in NHS IT circles from June 2002.

Confirmation of name change came on the same day that the Plain English Campaign announced its annual awards for the plain English, together with prizes for gobbledegook.

Famous name and brand changes of the past include:

• Marathon to Snickers


• Opal Fruits to Starburst


• Jiff to Cif


• New Amsterdam to New York


• Windscale to Sellafield


• The Exxon Valdez to Sea River Mediterranean


• Royal Mail to Consignia then promptly back to Royal Mail