Simon Burns revealed in a letter to the BMA on Friday that the Summary Care Record IS under review – as we recommended in our “not to be ignored” ‘Fixing NHS IT’ report. In his letter he said: “Using summary care records effectively depends on patients and doctors feeling an ownership of these records, rather than them being perceived as something imposed by a central arm of government. Reviewing how best to achieve this will be part of the wider project of reviewing how information and technology can best be leveraged within the health service.” 
However Trusts are still sending out letters to patients and there is total confusion at the front-line over what should be happening. Today, Christine Connelly, head of the Department for Health ‘Connecting for Health’ programme was supposed to be at “SmarthealthcareLive Conference” answering questions but pulled out – leaving them all unanswered. We hear that another report is in the pipeline also recommending a halt to the SCR and saying that they represent a huge amount of wasted money.
The tragedy is that we NEED good, locally held electronic records to facilitate improved care and stop all the massive amount of time wasted on lost records, form filling, repeating information, prescribing errors etc etc. The review is urgently needed and we are delighted that it is underway.
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About Julia Manning
Julia is a social pioneer, writer and campaigner. She studied visual science at City University and became a member of the College of Optometrists in 1991, later specialising in visual impairment and diabetes. During her career in optometry, she lectured at City University, was a visiting clinician at the Royal Free Hospital and worked with Primary Care Trusts. She ran a domiciliary practice across south London and was a Director of the UK Institute of Optometry.
Julia formed 20/20Health in 2006. Becoming an expert in digital health solutions, she led on the NHS–USA Veterans’ Health Digital Health Exchange Programme and was co-founder of the Health Tech and You Awards with Axa PPP and the Design Museum. Her research interests are now in harnessing digital to improve personal health, and she is a PhD candidate in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) at UCL. She is also dedicated to creating a sustainable Whole School Wellbeing Community model for schools that builds relationships, discovers assets and develops life skills. She is a member of the Royal Society of Medicine’s Digital Health Council.
Julia has shared 2020health's research widely in the media (BBC News, ITV, Channel 5 News, BBC 1′s The Big Questions & Victoria Derbyshire, BBC Radio 4 Today, PM and Woman's Hour, LBC) and has taken part in debates and contributed to BBC’s Newsnight, Panorama, You and Yours and ITV’s The Week.
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