Tories pledge NHS IT revolution in The Cloud

The Conservative Party is promising an end to bloated IT projects and the ability to access medical records in The Cloud if the Tories win the next General Election.

The Tories have proposed to give people access to look at their data, with the likes of Microsoft or Google hosting the records. Users could even be able to update their own records in a Wikipedia-like style. Every patient would have a username and password and could update their records with information like blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

"Giving patients greater control over their health records is crucial if we are to make the NHS more patient-centred," said Shadow Health Minister Stephen O'Brien. "Labour's attitude to our personal data is misguided. They seem to think they own it and, all too often, they have been appallingly careless in looking after it."

An end to costly IT?

The  £12.7 billion NHS IT programme in England - the world's largest civilian IT scheme - has been dogged by problems since its launch in 2002 and is many years behind schedule.  The Tories proposals would see an end to such massive IT initiatives being launched in the future.

"The Government's monolithic and costly IT system doesn't involve patients at all. Yet in patients' hands, health records could do so much more,” said O'Brien. “We would have a clearer picture of our health and our care and we would be able to add information to help doctors treat us better. This could make a huge difference in helping us understand how to live healthier lifestyles."

The Labour Government – which commissioned the existing NHS IT project – immediately raised security concerns about the prospect of a Cloud-based alternative, despite committing to the concept of public services being delivered via The Cloud in the recent Digital Britain report. 

"The Tories need to make it very clear how their plans will ensure patient confidentiality,” said Health Minister Ann Keen. "We have already set out our plans to give patients greater access to health information, for example through Healthspace where patients can see their summary care record."

O'Brien dismissed this argument, noting that patients would not be forced to opt in to the scheme, and if they decided not to, or if they did not have access to the internet, their medical records would remain at their GP surgery. "You want to have your data held locally and that should be with the person you trust most in the health service, which will be your GP,” he said. "If we hold the data locally it's more likely to be protected than within this massive [NHS] database. There's always a need to protect data, whether it's in the public or private sector.”

Contractual issues?

One area which has not been addressed so far is what the likely response of firms which are contracted to the existing NHS IT project would be to the scheme being scrapped. As a first step the Tories say they will “Halt and re-negotiate the contracts Labour have signed for IT service providers to prevent further inefficiencies.”

The Cloud commitment came alongside publication of a Conservative-commissioned independent review of NHS IT, chaired by Dr Glyn Hayes. "The review makes clear that NHS IT will only succeed in improving patient care if information is held locally and centred on the patient,” said Hayes.