Sue Sharpe: NHS reforms must ‘kickstart’ collaboration

I totally agree that shared records would benefit patients and collaboration between doctors and pharmacist. The big barrier to this is patients. In survey after survey the majority state they do not wish pharmacists to have access to any of their GP information. There have been some pilot schemes where GP practices working with pharmacies have asked patients on their list to give their informed consent to allow pharmacists to access their medical notes. This has proved more successful in gaining acceptance from patients.

There are issues of concern regarding patient confidentiality and the commercial nature of pharmacy. Maybe if access to such patient record is strictly restricted to pharmacists only with guarantees that body corporates will not try to circumvent issues in the name of pharmacy.Also there may be need for severe penalties for breaches e.g summary termination of contract and disciplinary action against the superintendent pharmacist of the company

Emmanuel, you comments hit the nail on the head. As we are at the moment, clinical records should never be shared between NHS and Commercial Enterprises such as pharmacies. Not only are we not IG3 Compliant, but even if we were, we are in essence not under the organisational structure of the NHS, and therefore not under their disciplinary remit. Inorder for sharing of sensitive patient information, we need to demonstrate uniform IG protocols (this means for example not sending faxed prescriptions via unsecured networks or not maintaining adequate scrutinisable asset registers).

Only when CQC monitors pharmacy and can show we are wholly compliant with handling patient sensitive information, can we begin going down the road of collaborative patient care pathways. I also would suggest, anyone sharing confidential data in an unsecured architecture, should face criminal proceedings. The PSNC should help lay the foundations before trying to push through colloboration which in my view cannot and will not happen until we all align our practice and architecture with the public health service.