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Board to aim for ‘paperless NHS’

The director of information for the NHS Commissioning Board has said it is his aim to create a paperless NHS.

Tim Kelsey, national director for patients and information at the NHS Commissioning Board, said the NHS had to catch up with other workplaces.

‘Every NHS hospital currently deals with mountains of paper every day, with enormous piles of patient notes wheeled around the corridors in trolleys,’ he said.

‘Outside that environment, there has been a revolution in data management: the first internet banks launched just 12 years ago, and they seemed strange and unfamiliar then, but now the vast majority of Britain’s banking is carried out online.’

This was something that the NHS should follow, he said.

‘I am determined to build that same revolution in the NHS: no more lost notes, no more waiting around while piles of paperwork are hauled up from cavernous record rooms. And most importantly, empowerment of patients themselves to access their own health records at any time.

‘The establishment of the new commissioning system gives us an opportunity like no other to do that, and it is my mission to make it happen,’ he added.