The Guardian has written about the Prevention of Future Deaths reports that politicians were citing as reason to do their central care record. 

Many of the cases say doctors didn’t know about a condition that would be clearly recorded in the Summary Care Record, or Shared Care Record, or in GP Connect, or any of the data systems designed to share data around the NHS. These existing systems are already there. But the response of DH is to say a new system might be ready by the mid-2030s – which is entirely disconnected from preventing deaths.

The list of PFDs is very long, there were 11 new ones in one day last week, so the lists you see are cherry-picked as well as being terrible experiences. Because someone died, these are the cases that get investigated. How many other cases are there where no one died so no coroner looked?

If missing access to records were really the life-saving priority claimed, a 3 months away solution is to tell all patients where/when their record was accessed via the national systems. So all the routine cases of non-access, the many more that don’t end with a coroner, can see when their record was not accessed when they believe it should have been. The living can ask why the frontline didn’t check these systems; the dead need coroners.

Your case shouldn’t have to be in front of a coroner to know whether your records weren’t read – by then it’s too late for you. We focus on scope for abuse of Wes’s plans, seeing where and when your records were accessed by creeps and stalkers, but it will be far more common to see that you interacted with the health system and your records from elsewhere were never checked.

If NHS England continues to refuse to tell patients – as they have refused for a decade, perhaps the GP Profession can have their IT providers do it instead, with a monthly audit automatically going into your documents via prospective access.

A central care record is not a necessary prerequisite to preventing future deaths, but it does offer an excuse for the Department of Health in England to do nothing for another decade, while the PFD reports keep rolling in.