Only 3,000 people sign up for £8m NHS internet project 1


Martin Beckford writes in the Daily Telegraph:

So far, 5million patients have had their sensitive health details, such as illnesses, vaccination history and medication taken, entered into an electronic Summary Care Record.

However the project had to be put on hold last year after public outcry that the records, feared to be vulnerable to hackers, were being uploaded without patients’ knowledge or consent, and a simpler opt-out system was introduced.

Under a linked plan, it was hoped that patients would sign up to HealthSpace, allowing them to look at their own records online as well as keep track of their weight, alcohol intake and hospital appointments.

But despite spending £8.03m on the scheme since 2007, the Department for Health admitted that by the end of January this year, just 2,971 patients had signed up for “advanced” accounts. This works out at a cost of £2,703 each.

Each user is said to have logged onto the system at least three times, and about 60 of them use it each month.

Of those who signed up, just 673 have actually looked at their medical record on HealthSpace, rather than using the other functions.

But only 10 out of England’s 151 Primary Care Trusts allow patients to use HealthSpace, and thousands of potential users gave up when confronted with the laborious registration process intended to allay security concerns.

Anyone who wants to sign up has to have a face-to-face meeting at a special registration office, where they must produce ID such as a passport along with two forms of proof of address.

Whitehall sources have indicated that a simple online registration process may now be introduced in order to encourage take-up of the scheme.


One thought on “Only 3,000 people sign up for £8m NHS internet project

  • Ruth

    Last year (or perhaps even the previous year) my partner & I copied the ‘opt out’ letter on the website with a link from no2id, brought it to our local surgery, handed it over & asked for a receipt – the not too happy receptionist stamped it with the surgery stamp & date & gave us both a copy.
    Perhaps because of that or perhaps because of changed legislation, we each received a letter towards the end of 2010 stating why we should want to go on their database & the problems it could cause us if we didn’t plus a link (which was incorrect) which we could use to print off a refusal letter if we really, really wanted to go down that road. We did, so duly printed off & completed the refusal forms – my partner then took them to the surgery while I was out of the country – but didn’t ask for a receipt so I can only hope our refusals were actioned. If anyone out there can suggest the best way of checking that out, I’d be very grateful. Thank you.

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