Electronic Health Records Will Fail Unless Public And Professional Confidence Is Restored, Says BMA

Main Category: IT / Internet / E-mail
Article Date: 13 Sep 2007 - 14:00 PDT

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The Government must regain the confidence of the public and the profession if the electronic patient record is to succeed, the BMA says today in it's response to the Health Select Committee report on the Electronic Patient Record (EPR).

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA's Head of Science and Ethics said: "Public and professional confidence in the National Programme for IT is low and its credibility is at stake. Many doctors feel that they are seeing few returns for the investment in IT at a time when financial cuts are being made across the NHS.

"The BMA remains concerned about security and confidentiality issues surrounding the Summary Care Record (SCR). It is important that any problems are exposed through a rigorous independent review of the pilot programme before the SCR is launched across England and that the results of the review are made available to the public and healthcare professionals.

"The Government will not regain the confidence of the public or the profession unless it can demonstrate that its systems are safe. The BMA has urged the Government not to roll out the SCR until an independent review of the early adopter programme pilot has been completed.

"We support the committee's recommendation of increasing local ownership of systems. The BMA has also recommended that local organisations should be offered a choice of systems. Implementation lessons must be shared nationally so that mistakes are not repeated.

"We are pleased that the Health Select Committee has urged the Government to improve communications with patients and doctors. The BMA has already suggested to Connecting for Health that they should work with us, and the medical defence organisations, to agree a standardised package of information that will help ensure patients are properly informed."

http://www.bma.org.uk