Do NHS computers talk to each other?
No, no .. well a bit. They should (sorry).
In most parts of the UK this is true. Hence GP, hospital, pharmacy, mental health and ambulance staff do not know exactly what each other is doing.
This leads to many mistakes, especially related to prescribing medicines. In some areas, there are partial links between systems.
Successive governments over the past 15 years have tried to create a national NHS ‘electronic patient record’ (EPR) and this has failed. Also, at a local and sub-regional level, the data are not compatible.
Theoretically, it’s very simple to do when you have numbers in thousands and tens of thousands. However, when you have millions of patients with thousands of pieces of information, it becomes much more difficult. These things are surmountable with the will, and money; and of course Google, Tesco and Amazon have done it.
However, the NHS has substandard systems.
There is hope
Many hospital groups are now bringing in new IT systems (i.e. EPRs) to integrate NHS computers in that area – so health professionals know what is going on. These are mainly American IT systems, including Cerner and EPIC. These are very expensive.
Such systems may one day be ‘the glue’ that holds the new NHS geographical entities called an Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), which cover 1-2 million people in a subregional grouping – i.e. all staff in that area will have access to your information (and hopefully you one day).
For a large hospital group, even a cheaper system can cost £7 million a year to maintain. MyHSN thinks that is a price worth paying – even if these systems are not ideal, and dont link to GP recordss. In industry, many companies put 10% or more of their turnover into IT. So should we. It saves lives, just as a doctor or nurse can.
In years to come, it may be possible to ‘link up’ ICS-based computer systems into a true national NHS computer system. And , if that could be linked to your NHS app, the NHS will work off one EPR that you have access to as well. Now wouldn’t that be great!
Other resources
Why don’t hospital computer systems link up in the NHS?
The NHS is not underfunded
