Government Information Strategy contains improvements for patients, though care will be needed to ensure records remain secure, says BMA

The launch of the government’s Information Strategy for health and social care contains positive improvements which should benefit patients, but it would need to be carefully implemented so it didn’t jeopardise patient confidentiality, the BMA said today.

Commenting on the strategy, Dr Laurence Buckman, Chairman of the BMA’s GPs Committee, said:

“There are GP surgeries which have been pioneering online booking and repeat prescriptions for a while now so we would support the wider implementation of this, as long as it doesn’t impact on patients without IT access who can continue to book appointments in the usual way.   However, we would caution against the potential use of email for consultations, because compared to a telephone or face-to-face consultation it is difficult for GPs to assess someone quickly and safely this way.

“When it comes to patients being able to view their records online, we believe patients should have access to their health records but we’d want to be satisfied that their records would remain secure before this was implemented – for example it would be important to be certain that it couldn’t be an abusive partner or a parent trying to access their teenager’s records.  All patients need to be confident that their records are held safely otherwise they may not feel comfortable talking to their GP about confidential issues.

“We would need to see the detail on the ‘clinical portals’ as while we support the sharing of relevant information between healthcare professionals there are challenges with shared electronic systems.”