HealthSpace wins clinician vote

HealthSpace, the NHS’s own personal health record project, has been voted the most exciting part of the NHS national IT programme.

Dr Gillian Braunold, clinical lead for the Summary Care Record (SCR) and HealthSpace, revealed the results of the vote last week.

Speaking on Thursday, 13 March at a DH press conference, she said “The National Clinical Advisory Group for Connecting for Health voted yesterday that HealthSpace was the most exciting product for the next few years.”

HealthSpace is the CfH personal health record, controlled by the patient. It provides the patient view of the SCR, which enables patients to view their medical record online. Over time it will also give patients tools to carry out transactions online, including booking appointments and ordering repeat prescriptions.

After a slow start, the SCR is now in use in five locations, mostly in Bradford and Bolton, with 165,000 patient records now held on the systems.

Despite widely publicised confidentiality concerns, patient opt-out rates have proven extremely low, running at less than 0.6% of total records.