HealthSpace up for review again

Yet another review is being carried out into the viability of the HealthSpace organiser, which gives patients access to their Summary Care Record if it exists and they have an ‘advanced’ account.

Figures obtained by eHealth Insider show that the number of people using the NHS service to access their SCR has fallen by more than 50% since the beginning of the year.

In February, 60 patients a month were using an advanced HealthSpace account to see their record, but this has now fallen to just 25 a month.

A DH spokesperson told EHI the low usage was due to the site’s limited functionality and the lengthy registration process for an advanced account, which was introduced because of security concerns.

She also said: “The business case to enhance HealthSpace is under review in the context of efforts to make it easier for patients and citizens to easily and securely access services that meet their needs.”

Last week, the Cabinet Office launched an Open Data consultation on making government and public services information more ‘transparent’ to the public.

It once again presented wider online access to medical records as a key element in the government’s plans, claiming that this would “enable service design and delivery to be changed radically, reducing cost and improving quality.”

HealthSpace was initially launched as an online organiser. The previous, Labour government gave the go-ahead for the advanced account in 2007.

NHS Connecting for Health subsequently put together an ambitious business case to expand the service to 4m users and enhance its functionality. However, the plans were apparently shelved in summer 2009, after a review by the Treasury.

The incoming coalition government has promised patients an ‘information revolution’, but HealthSpace failed to feature in the consultation that was run at the end of last year, and which was supposed to lead to a new information strategy for the NHS.

Now, though, it seems to be under review yet again, even though only 3,119 people have registered for an advanced account and 182,000 for a basic account.

A review of the SCR conducted by researchers from University College London said the service received £18m in funding for the year to January 2011, from the ‘Darzi stream’ of NHS innovation money. This meant that in January, it was costing £6,000 per advanced account user.

Claudia Pagliari, senior lecturer in primary care at the University of Edinburgh, said other personal health projects showed that for HealthSpace to succeed it would need transactional services and clinician support.

“Just having the information there is not going to change anything; it really needs clinician involvement as well.”

Read more about the development of personal health records in the Insight section.