Patients to be given control of electronic health records

The Tories plan to scrap a central database for electronic patient records and give patients greater control over their health records.

They say their plans would cost almost nothing, compared to the £12bn cost of Labour's scheme, which is now running almost five years late, and will not be in place until 2015.

Patients would keep their records in a 'cloud' world, using products from Google or Microsoft, but other suppliers would not be excluded. The records could be managed locally by GPs and hospitals with patients having online access.

The measure is aimed at empowering patients and improving communications between them and clinicians and between patients themselves. Greater personal control of health records, argue the Tories, will allowpatients to share information with third parties if they want - for example, it could enable communities of patients to come together online and discuss their conditions and treatments.

Stephen O'Brien, the shadow health minister, is due to publish today the findings of a review by Dr Glyn Hayes. He said that the government's "monolithic and costly IT system doesn't involve patients at all. Yet in patients' hands, health records could do so much more. We would have a clearer picture of our health and our care and we would be able to add information to help doctors treat us better. This could make a huge difference in helping us understand how to live healthier lifestyles."

Dr Hayes, added, "The review makes clear that NHS IT will only succeed in improving patient care if information is held locally and centred on the patient."
Individuals would share their notes with private hospitals and patient support groups, under the plans which would also involve the scrapping of the centralised database system currently being introduced in the health service, which has been dogged by problems, delays and spiralling costs.

Local trusts, states the review, should be able to choose their computer system from a catalogue of agreed providers rather than having one imposed on them. It also recommends that contracts in place with IT service providers - two out of four of whom have already pulled out of the project - should be brought to a halt and renegotiated to 'prevent further inefficiencies'.

Under the Conservative scheme, patients would be able to annotate their official records, alerting family doctors and hospitals to side-effects they had suffered as a result of taking medication, or medical symptoms which had gone undetected.

Opponents to the proposal fear it would make records vulnerable to hacking. The BMA has expressed concerns over the security if web-based system and is concerned at confidential data being held by the private sector.

Meanwhile, a Department of Health spokesman said the report highlighted nothing new, claiming that patients were now "directly benefiting from the modernisation of NHS IT - including being able to make their first outpatient appointment through Choose and Book, new digital images and a new electronic prescriptions service."