§ Mr. LevittTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the progress of the Electronic Record Demonstrator Implementation Programme and progress towards achieving a national electronic health record database; what timescale he is working to; and if he plans to fund the chosen programme from(a) NHS funds, (b) a public-private partnership and (c) other sources. [137273]
§ Ms StuartThe Electronic Record Development and Implementation Programme (ERDIP) was launched in November 1999. Following the selection exercise the names of the successful Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Electronic Patient Record (EPR) demonstrator sites were announced in April and June 2000 respectively. These have been placed in the Library.
The NHS Information Authority (NHSIA) is currently finalising deliverables, timescales and associated release of funding with each of the individual sites. Detailed Project Initiation Documents will be available on the NHSIA website at http://nww.nhsia.nhs.uk once the Project Briefs have been approved.
The work of the demonstrator sites is being supported by three projects managed centrally by the NHSIA:
824WDefinition of level 3 EPR for acute hospitals for integrated care pathways and electronic prescribing. The total cost of this work will be around £39,000, which will be met from the NHSIA's central budget;Definition of the components of the first generation EHR that will need to be in place by 2005 to support 24-hour emergency care access to patient records. This year the NHSIA will spend around £62,000 against this activity, with further work being commissioned in years 2001–03. The cost of all of this work will be met from the NHSIA's central budget;The development of an evaluation programme to ensure the sites will deliver solutions that can be applied on a national basis (£1.7 million from the Modernisation Fund has been set aside for this programme).The management costs of ERDIP are being funded from the NHSIA's central budget.
In total, (including the £1.7 million), up to £13.1 million from the Modernisation Fund will be used to support the cost of the two-year demonstrator programme. These funds will be used to deliver solutions earlier to the NHS and are in addition to the £132 million allocated for local investment in the implementation of the Strategy in 2000–01. Further sums will be made available to the Service as part of the spending review settlement for the period 2001–04. These will be announced in the autumn as part of the three-year allocations for health authorities.