NHS England has scrapped its timetable for the Care.data patient records project, insisting the programme will only roll out nationally once the “process is right”.
NHS England has scrapped its timetable for the Care.data patient records project, insisting the programme will only be introduced nationally once the “process is right”.
National director for patients and information Tim Kelsey has said the programme - currently in the middle of a six-month pause - would not be subject to “artificial deadlines”.
He said the decision was taken after fresh consultation with GPs, patients, researchers and privacy campaigners.
NHS England had hoped a national rollout would be possible following the pause, but will now only commit to a pilot by autumn.
“In light of all these conversations we are now proposing to phase the implementation of Care.data work with 100-500 GP practices in the autumn to test, evaluate and refine the data collection process ahead of a national rollout,” Mr Kelsey wrote in an NHS England blog.
“We do not subscribe to artificial deadlines here,” he wrote.
“We will roll it out nationally only when we are sure the process is right.”
His blog followed NHS England’s new chief executive’s appearance last week at the Commons health committee. Simon Stevens told MPs that the NHS should not be tied to an “artificial start date”.
The Care.data project involves extracting data from patients’ GP records, linking with their hospital records and eventually across other care sectors to give a complete patient record across their whole care pathway.
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