Image source: NHS England
NHS England has urged health and care professionals to move to the new version of its patient record service.
It has made the statement in advance of all users of the Summary Care Record application (SCRa) being required to switch to the National Care Records Service (NCRS) by 29 September of this year.
The SCRa is currently used by over 15,000 organisations and 115,000 employees to securely access patient medical information at the point of care, but is built on older technology and is not aligned with the more modern working practices.
NHS England said the web based NCRS improves the way staff can access patient records. It can be used in clinical, office or mobile environments over the internet, as well as via the Health and Social Care Network.
It has been designed for better internet-first connectivity, making it more compatible with mobile devices, and sign-in methods have been upgraded to include secure biometric log-in, Microsoft authenticator, and existing physical and virtual smartcards.
Better accessibility
Stephen Koch, executive director for platforms at NHS England, said: “The new NCRS has been created with both mobile and internet technology in mind, to better meet the needs of modern healthcare settings and meet accessibility standards in a way the previous system was unable to.
“By working closely with end users, we have designed the new service to provide a quick and secure way to access national patient information to improve clinical decision making and healthcare outcomes for patients.
“We’ve taken steps to ensure the switch over to NCRS is as quick and simple as possible and hope users will take this opportunity to join the thousands of other health and care staff who have already switched to the new system to benefit from the new features available.”
Services accessed by NCRS will remain the same, ensuring it will still be possible to search for patient NHS numbers using the Personal Demographics Service, access patient summary care records, and view child protection information.
Locator, flags and smartcards
Extra features make it possible to retrieve care plans through the National Record Locator and view reasonable adjustments flags, and existing smartcard credentials and access rights will continue to work on NCRS.
The new system is being introduced amid concerns in some areas that NHS staff are not yet making full use of electronic health records (EHRs).
A recent survey of over 1,200 UK public healthcare workers for a report by consultancy Deloitte found that while 87% regarded EHRs as one of the top five technologies - being the one most likely to improve the quality of care and efficiency - only 64% of clinicians said they were actually using them.
The report also identifies a lack of adoption of standards based EHR systems as one of the issues organisations will have to deal with to improve interoperability in healthcare systems. A wider adoption could contribute to benefits including better engagement between clinicians and patients, the latters' consent to sharing their information, safer transitions of care and improved continuity and consistency of care.
It would also contribute to the overall topic of the report in sustaining the healthcare workforce by helping people achieve a better work/life balance.
