Patients’ deaths prompt Hunt call to improve sharing of data in NHS

Highlighting the benefits of sharing data across the health service, Mr Hunt said most NHS users would be “astonished” that their information does not regularly pass between GPs and hospitals.

Mr Hunt said none of the big challenges facing the NHS can be resolved unless it becomes “more ambitious and enlightened” about sharing information.

Speaking at the Delivering a Paperless NHS conference in London, he said: “If you look at the big challenges facing the health service with an ageing society – things like the A&E departments that I spoke of yesterday, the problem with joined-up services, the issues of patient safety and compassionate care that came into the Francis review – none of those issues are going to be resolved unless we take a much more ambitious and enlightened view as to the power of information.

“Most NHS users would be astonished that information doesn’t flow around the system.

“In many hospitals the IT systems aren’t even linked within a hospital, let alone between hospitals and other parts of the health economy. That’s I’m afraid a fairly normal situation across the country.

“Eleven people died last year in the NHS from being given the wrong medication.

“This is a really important part of the compassionate care agenda, the safety agenda, the integration agenda.”

He said there must be “proper” safeguards in place to protect patients’ personal information, adding: “Essentially, people will have a veto on that information being shared in the wider system.”