Sharing health info can improve services

LEAFLETS are dropping through letterboxes in Warrington today explaining how sharing information about NHS treatment people have received can help to improve services.
The “Better Information Means Better Care” leaflet, explains the benefits of sharing information.
Overall aim of care.data, a programme that will use information to improve the safety and care of patients, is to ensure NHS services are equally safe no matter where you live and to highlight different diseases and conditions that may require more NHS investment.
Dr Kieran Murphey, medical director at NHS England, Cheshire, Warrington and Wirral said: “As doctors, we need as much information about an individual as possible to ensure they receive the best care for their health needs. We collect this information in separate patient records which are extremely secure to safeguard patient confidentiality.
“Bringing anonymised data together from millions of these patient records will show trends in health and give us a much deeper insight into the quality and effectiveness of the care people are receiving. It will help us identify where the NHS can make improvements to improve health outcomes.
“Care.data will also help us to more clearly analyse the services people use now so we are better able to predict the demand for the kind of services our local populations may need in the future. This is hugely important in enabling us to ensure we use NHS resources efficiently and effectively to support the health and wellbeing of our population in the best way.”
The NHS treats millions of patients every week and modern data techniques now mean the characteristics of all those patients as well as their treatments and experiences can be analysed to help improve the quality of care for all.
Using this combined information the NHS can obtain answers to questions about the quality of care that would have been difficult or impossible to answer only a few years ago.
Patients have the right to object to their data being used for purposes other than their direct care. If patients wish to restrict their data being used then they should talk to their GP.
An information line has been set up for patients to call if they have any questions or concerns about how their data are used. The number is 0300 456 3531.