Care records improve quality and safety

11 Mar 09

The use of the care record at the Royal Bolton Hospital has not caused farcical scenes ('Hospital abandons care record plans after rollout causes chaos').

As an early adopter, Bolton has been pioneering the use of care records in various healthcare settings. The project remains in a transitional period with, so far, a third of Bolton patients having a care record. By the end of the year most will have one. This will have a significant bearing on how many records are accessed.

The use of care records across the Bolton health economy has increased widely since it was integrated into the Adastra clinical system, which is used by the Bolton GP out-of-hours and walk-in services. This has improved both quality and safety for Bolton's patients, particularly in urgent care.

From Dr Claire Wightman, NPfIT communication manager