Skip to main content

NHS: ICT

Volume 459: debated on Wednesday 18 April 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many trusts she expects to meet the Patient Administration System implementation deadline of 23 April; and if she will make a statement. (131739)

The information is in the table.

Patient administration systems (PAS) implemented in:

Deployments to date

Additional deployments planned to be completed by 23 April 2007

Acute Trusts

19

4

Primary Care Trusts

94

5

Primary Care Trusts (PAS with additional clinical functionality)

89

0

Mental Health Trusts

17

0

Total

219

9

The national health service is in the process of moving from being an organisation with fragmented or incomplete systems, with physical processing and storage of records on paper, to a position where national systems are fully integrated, record keeping is digital, and patients have unprecedented access to their personal health records. PAS systems that are compliant with other applications delivered through the national programme for information technology are a key element of this process.

The national programme is providing essential services to support patient care and the smooth running of the NHS, without which it could already not properly function. Thousands of national and local systems have already been successfully deployed on time, including widespread coverage of community PAS where none existed previously. Almost two thirds of hospitals now have digital X-rays and scans, and at the heart of the programme is the NHS care records service which will in due course provide a lifelong electronic personal health record for NHS patients in England.