§ Mrs. CaltonTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment has been made of the possibility of the loss of patient data while new IT schemes under the National Programme for IT are being implemented. [159141]
§ Mr. HuttonThe national programme for information technology (NpfIT) is implementing a series of IT solutions to improve patient choice and the quality of patient treatment and care. Fundamental to this is the national health service care records service, that will enable patient care information to be accessed at the point of need anywhere in England.
In most cases, electronic patient records will be transferred from existing local IT systems and patient administration systems into the nationally available NHS care records service. This is not a new process and occurs at local level every time there is a system refresh or upgrade. Standard IT protocols allow for data to be regressed if problems are encotmtered during transfer to ensure that data is not lost and contracts with suppliers require data back ups to be taken regularly.
§ Mr. YeoTo ask the Secretary of State for Health whether there is a facility in the National Programme for IT accredited systems for general practitioners to write free text notes on the patient in the electronic patient record. [160662]
§ Mr. HuttonThe facility to record free text is a mandatory requirement for accredited systems for general practice. It is also part of the functionality of the national health service national care records service and this facility will therefore be provided for in the future.