asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What plans are in place, or under discussion, to make electronic patient records accessible in prisons. [HL806]

The task of developing and providing prison establishments with appropriate clinical information technology hardware and software has always been recognised as an integral corollary of the transfer of healthcare responsibility from the Home Office to this department from April 2006. Within the department, the provision of strategic IT systems is undertaken by the National Health Service Connecting for Health (NHS CfH) agency as a part of the wider national programme for information technology in the NHS.

There is no single national start or completion date for individual national programme systems and services. The aim is to achieve substantial integration of health and social care information systems in England under the national programme by 2010. In line with best practice, this involves implementing new services incrementally, avoiding a big bang approach, and providing increasingly richer functionality over time.

However, planning is under way to extend compliant primary care systems to support prison healthcare. Mental health and limited secondary care functionality will be added at a later date as applications become available. The first practical step to achieving this goal is in the form of providing the necessary connectivity to the N3 network in the prison estate. This has two aspects: providing broadband connections to prison establishments, and developing a network infrastructure in establishments. This month, £3 million will be specifically allocated through strategic health authorities to enhance prison healthcare IT infrastructure, with work due to complete by March 2007. NHS CfH is liaising with the Prison Service and primary care trusts to oversee implementation of this phase of the programme, based on local costed plans.