The Health Secretary, who has previously revealed he was diagnosed with a rare neurological condition in his twenties, said he understood the burden placed on patients by fragmented care.
He said: “I know how much effort it can be to keep different parts of the health service joined up, and how distressing it is for some patients to repeat their medical history over and over. That’s why our Single Patient Record is so important.”
The Government has said the reforms will help shift the NHS from treating illness after it develops to preventing health crises before they occur, while supporting more care closer to home.
Better information sharing means better community care
By James Murray, Health and Social Care Secretary
The NHS has always represented the very best of this country: care based on need, not ability to pay.
Yet there have been persistent obstacles to delivering that care efficiently, obstacles which stretch back decades.
For too long, one of the greatest frustrations for patients and clinicians alike has been the fragmented way medical data is shared between different parts of the health service. It gets in the way of delivering the timely, world-class care NHS staff are so determined to provide.
Anyone who uses the health service regularly will recognise the problem: repeating the same symptoms to different doctors and nurses, endless forms asking for the same information, delays because scans, test results or medication histories are sitting in different systems that cannot speak to one another, and clinicians having to make decisions without a full picture of a patient’s health.
Previous governments recognised these were major challenges, yet failed to sufficiently address them, and the delivery of a fully joined-up patient record remained elusive.
Today, we are taking the decisive step to finally make it happen, building on what works currently in the NHS.
The NHS Modernisation Bill, returning to Parliament this week, paves the way for a Single Patient Record (SPR).
That means one secure, unified view of a patient’s health and care history that will go with them wherever they are treated.
Whether it’s the paramedic arriving at someone’s home, the elderly parent being admitted to hospital or the pregnant woman attending midwife appointments, clinicians should have access to the whole picture at a glance.
They should be able to see allergies, medications, previous conditions, test results and treatment plans immediately, securely and clearly.
This will save lives. It will also spare patients the burden and anxiety of endlessly retelling painful or distressing experiences simply because systems are not joined up.
Economic benefits
By reducing duplicate prescribing, medication errors and unnecessary appointments, the SPR is expected to save the NHS up to £20m every year.
Up to 20,000 A&E attendances and 6,000 hospital admissions could be avoided annually, while freeing up the equivalent of hundreds of hospital beds for those who need them most.
At a time when every NHS pound must work harder, that means more resources directed to treating patients, rather than avoidable admin.
Most importantly, it will help us shift healthcare from a system that too often reacts to crises, to one that proactively prevents them.
Better information sharing means better community care, better management of long-term conditions and more people supported to stay healthy at home rather than ending up in hospital.
Of course, none of this can happen without public trust.
People rightly expect their personal medical information to be protected with the strictest security. That principle is non-negotiable.
The SPR will operate with strict safeguards, robust cyber protections and clear rules governing who can access their information and why.
Meanwhile, patients will enjoy greater transparency and control over how their data is used than ever before.
What is undeniable is that we cannot continue with fragmented systems that waste taxpayers’ money, clinicians’ time and, too often, impact patients’ safety.
The Single Patient Record will help us call time on these frustrations, making sure the NHS continues to serve the needs of our ageing, growing and diversifying population, just as it has done for the last 77 years.
