Four-fifths of doctors say electronic record insecure

Four-fifths of doctors are concerned that current plans for patients’ health records to be available from a central database – the summary care record – will make them insecure, according to a survey for the Times.

Asked what level of confidence they had that central health records will be secure, 80% of GP respondents said they not confident or they were very worried. In addition, 77% of consultant respondents also gave the same answers.

Over half (57%) of respondents said that they felt that local NHS organisations will not be able to maintain the privacy of patient data within their area.

Doctors.net.uk, a medical network website, carried out the survey for the Times newspaper, between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day asking 11 questions on attitudes towards the National Programme for IT – including who should have access, how secure the system is and how confident they are that the new systems will work.

However, the 640 respondents did express their support for NPfIT, with 70% saying they were confident that centrally available patient data will improve patient care.

The majority of respondents, 54%, agreed that patients should have some control over their own personal record, however, 67% were against patients having full control of their electronic record.

A BMA spokesperson told E-Health Insider: “This poll shows how low confidence in the NPfIT [the National Programme for IT] really is. The government will not regain the confidence of the public or the profession unless it can demonstrate that its systems are safe.

“We await the review of the pilot schemes with interest but believe before the scheme is rolled out every patient must be given full and clear information about the proposals so that they can make up their own minds about whether to go ahead or not.”

The latest survey shows that consultants are more strongly in favour of NPfIT than GPs, with 78% agreeing or strongly agreeing that care will be improved, against 53% of GPs.

“The poll shows big cultural differences between primary and secondary care. We view this survey as a clear call to action that front line clinicians need to be embraced before any more systems are rolled out,” Dr Shaibal Roy, operations director of Doctors.net.uk, told EHI.

“GPs have had electronic records for two decades, and the key difference this poll shows is that doctors more experienced with IT are more concerned about it. They all agree that electronic records in GPs’ surgeries are important, but do we need to share them is the main issue.”

Asked ‘Do you think you will be able to rely on the accuracy of centrally available shared patient information?’, the answers were mixed – 35% said yes, but 33% answered no and 32% were unsure.

The poll also asked doctors whether they thought that a patient’s record should be accessible to private healthcare providers. Responses were evenly divided, 43% saying that they should and 41% that they should not.

Asked if they thought that the medical profession was prepared for the transition to electronic records, only 29% said they thought it was, against 66% who said it isn’t.

To date, around 20 GP surgeries in Bolton and Bury have added 110,000 patients’ details to the system, part of the £12bn NHS IT upgrade project. A national roll-out is planned from late 2008, once an evaluation of the pilot sites is completed.

Dr Roy told EHI that more needs to be done to assure both medical staff and patients that the electronic system will be secure and accurate at all times.

“When I talk to colleagues in Europe, where they don’t have any systems as ambitious as this, they are astonished that people in the UK aren’t keener on NPfIT. This really needs to change if NPfIT is to succeed.”

The Times poll findings follow a survey last February by the website which found that a resounding 91% were not optimistic that NPfIT will change the NHS and that 76% thought NPfIT had been a “frustrating project”.

The latest Times survey also echoes the concerns highlighted by the larger annual Medix UK tracking survey, sponsored by E-Health Insider. In the 2007 survey of over 1,000 clinicians three-quarters of GPs, and more than half of the non-GPs, felt the new care records service would make confidentiality worse.

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