HC Deb 04 December 2002 vol 395 c908W
Mr. Norman

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the finding by the National Confidential Inquiry into Perioperative Deaths on the impact on patient care in the NHS the availability and maintenance of medical records; and what measures he plans to take to address this issue. [83454]

Mr. Lammy

The Department is aware of problems with paper based medical records including their lack of availability, legibility, difficulty in finding particular items of information, limited life-span and general lack of structure in them.

The answer to these problems and others concerning the use of this type of record is to replace them with electronic ones.

The delivery of electronic records is now being taken forward as part of the integrated care record service (ICRS), in implementing the national strategic programme, "Delivering 21st Century IT Support for the NHS".