As we move the NHS from an era of paper based records to one in which all information is
held on computer systems, we need to make sure it can flow seamlessly between providers
in order that patients are best cared for.
That’s where the Local Health and Care Record programme came from.
The idea that paper is secure, is I think ridiculous.
Looking for paper notes, requesting paper notes, writing is not legible, pieces
are missing.
As people start to move towards electronic communication they do see the benefit
and that’s clinicians and patients alike.
My mum is getting older, she is a person with diabetes, she has a multitude of other problems,
and even I sometimes struggle to remember all her medical problems.
If she goes into hospital and I am not there with her, she
can’t always relay all of that information across.
So what does it mean for citizens, for patients?
One is an end to the frustration of having to repeat yourself endlessly as if the information
has never been collected by the NHS before.
I personally wouldn’t want to be telling every healthcare professional
– oh by the way, I’ve got cancer.
Patients get sick of repeating what medications they
take, they don’t always remember because they
could be on 10, 12 even more tablets on a daily basis.
Patients would often ask me why can’t you see all this, why can't you see this information
they are often amazed when you say well up to now we haven’t been able to do that in
out of hours or in hospital.
We need to let people see their own records, own their own records, understand their own
records.
The most dramatic example of this are people with long term conditions who are
part of a care planning process that describes what we need to do if things go wrong for
them.
So we have a patient who lives in Hull, and they also see their other specialist in Leeds
and they're coming to us in Newcastle to have a bone marrow transplant.
Obviously this patient has a very rare disorder, they are having
lots of blood tests and different things are happening to them in these three different
hospitals, and yet we don’t have all that information.
So, they can become seriously unwell, they can have a life threatening bleed,
and we won’t have access to those tests, to what's happened to them and that kind of
sharing of data and the ability to see it really quickly, so we can make decisions is
absolutely of the uttermost importance.
Data sharing frees up time to care, to spend with the patient, you know, an electronic
version of a document or referral that could have taken half an hour can be cut down simplified
to 5 minutes.
It saves a lot of time.
I don’t have to go around all of the GP surgeries
asking for patient's summaries.
There is no urgent phone calls from A&E; departments enquiring about someone’s problems.
Clarifications on medications and certainly our prescribing
team that look after the prescriptions for 10,000 patients have certainly noticed less
traffic from hospitals asking about patients medications.
Around about a couple of weeks ago there was somebody who was referred to us in the middle
of the night, it was 3am, they were in such a distressed state,
that they really found it very difficult to communicate.
They were experiencing a really florid psychotic episode.
We were able to access data sharing, and get a lot of information
in regards to this person’s previous mental health and medical history, which really informed
the decision making and enabled this person to get the correct care and treatment.
At the moment we know there's an outbreak of measles in the Newcastle area.
Now if we had that data we would be able to spot that
pattern quicker and therefore put preventative measures to stop the spread.
A few years ago we were looking at Ebola and if we have the
ability to track these different infections, this in the future is absolutely of national
importance.
So bringing together health and social care is one of the big challenges facing us at
the moment.
We have significant amount of work up and down the country to help people,
for example, get from a hospital to a social care funded place in a much more streamlined
way.
So there is a project in Bristol, which covers the whole of Bristol,
North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, to connect health care and social care in
as many ways as possible.
In one place we can view all the data that is streamed into
this project in real time.
I remember a man who was in the army and he arrived back to
wander the streets addicted to various drugs.
I was able to immediately see that he has had services around Bristol before and putting
the jigsaw of his life together was much easier.
The vast majority of our patients have chronic health conditions see multiple doctors, nurses
and social workers throughout the year, through multiple appointments.
And the priority for them I think, is that all those clinicians
are talking to each other and talking to each other in real time.
If I was a patient, I would definitely want my data shared.
I would definitely want my data shared.
If I was the patient, I would absolutely want my data shared.
I would like my data shared.
I have numerous allergies, including a latex allergy.
So if I was run over in the street, I would want
somebody not to pick me up wearing latex gloves.
So not having access to the tests that a patient may have had done a week ago, and therefore
you can’t prescribe a certain medication, I don’t think in this day and age is acceptable.
We know that technology can make our lives so much easier we need to bring that same
transformation into the NHS and make staff and patients’ lives much much better.