“Hi I’m Ingrid and I’m in my seventies, and I’m unfortunate enough to have a lot of long-term conditions due to the fact that I have ankylosing spondylitis. The patient access works for me in lots of ways, but one of the ways it is extremely useful for and keeps me safe is that I can share it with other professionals. So I can take my information down to the hospital which they won’t have and I can take it with me so I can take it with me and make sure everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. That’s exceptionally useful. The best thing about having access to my information online is, first of all, I don’t have ask anybody anything I can find it out for myself. I’m fully engaged in the management of my own health and I can work in partnership with my doctors. That’s very important to me, I want to be able to collaborate fully. It really helps me to able to read what’s happened during a consultation with my GP. I can make sure I understand what’s happening, I can make sure what the doctor’s going to do next and what I’ve got to do next, and if there are any medication issues I can look at those. It’s very difficult to remember everything thing that’s been said during a consultation and this is a marvellous, safe, checklist. I can also have access to my GP records using an app on my mobile phone. This is tremendously advantageous because I can use my phone to access the information wherever I am, home or abroad, 24/7, so I can share my information with anyone who needs it. I feel having access to my records makes me a good partner and being informed helps me to have really good, intelligent conversations with my consultants and my GP, so that we can make joint decisions. And it’s well-recognised that patients who are informed and involved in their health have much better outcomes and I am sure that having access to my records has helped me to do that and can help a lot of other people too”
After the colossal failure of the NHS’s £12Billion National Program for IT it’s great to see NHS England highlighting the incredibly important work that NHS GP Dr Amir Hannan has been pioneering in his greater Manchester practices with the above video interview with Ingrid Brindle, Chair of the Thornley House Patient Participation Group, that highlights the capacity for Patients to be a key part of the solution to the IT modernisation challenges faced by the NHS.
Surgery Cares: implementing Instant Medical HistoryTM in General Practice.