What's your GP written about you?
Do you remember the NHS IT Programme? Twenty or so years ago it was one of the flagships of the Blair era: a single, modern, IT system for the whole NHS. But it never really happened, or rather, wasn’t allowed to happen. I remember it well, I was part of the programme’s delivery team for four years. *** The plans sounded fine: the NHS should work like a bank, or a motor car business, or indeed almost any other industry in the modern world, which all have ONE set of records for its customers. Years ago, you could walk into a bank in a town and cash a cheque without them knowing whether you had enough money in your account - you needed a cheque guarantee card (remember them?). In the 1990s all of the banks moved to having a single set of records for all customers, and now, whichever branch of your bank you walk into they will know everything about your accounts from the one set of records. The NHS IT programme was based around the same idea: it should not matter which hospital a patient