Why NHS /GP patient records

Andrew has brought this to us :

If my surgery take a blood sample, it appears (seemingly) as a direct computer record on the surgeries system and available for me to read by logging in next day - a full set of the data. Staff suggest the samples go in batches to the lab, which rapidly processes them and produces quick results.

If the hospital take a sample, likely that will be absolutely the last I will hear about it, unless they have an issue to report to me.

Of course Labour never blamed anything on Thatcher.

Not that easy to do when someone like Maggies sold off the council houses to any tenant who wanted to buy it.

Or privatised government operations either.

Fraid not.

But no reason to have the patient carry a bit of paper to where the blood sample is taken. Just have the printer where the blood sample is taken and print the sticky barcode label there.

Even better to tattoo a barcode on the patient's forehead so the machine know who the patient is too.

My surgery, although quite large, doesn't do blood tests on the premises. They give you a list of walk in places in the area who do. If they did do it themselves, I doubt I'd have to carry paperwork around.

Oddly, my local hospital has the lab used to analyse that sample the GP ordered.

Labour ain't in power, Wodney.

So best to just carry on blaming a predecessor than actually do anything to sort things.

Good to know you like being walked over.

Then you have to make sure it applies to the person giving the sample. Meaning far more work for the nurse involved. Horses for courses.

They were for quite a while and did that when they were tho.

Yes, that?s what Labour did plenty of.

Just another of your silly little fantasys.

Yes, that?s why she asks for my date of birth, to check that.

And they have to do that when they hand you the paper to carry to the nurse too.

It took a second to check that the date of birth I stated matched what was on the order.

Packed full of fantastic American blood analysers and other medical scientific kit, developed to supply the needs of the (massive) USA private health care system, and now in use in every developed country in the world.

dunno where you live,

but where I live,

whilst I will accept that the GP and Hospital systems are separate (so that a GP can't log on to see my hospital records directly and vv) all correspondence of records between the two human parties is communicated in digital form.

tim

this is where a sensible use of client-serve technology helps

the database itself (the server) will be standardised nationally, the GP's own system (the client) will be a free choice that the GP makes, from the number of supplies that have implemented the (open) interface into the nationally-defined server.

And I am surprised that the HNS (having boobed so often in the past) seem to have made this work

I have just moved GP and I can chose for myself one of 5 different GUI interfaces to log into to reach their online appointment system.

Of course what hasn't improved is the practice's willingness to release onto "online booking" a sizable quantity of available appointments to book.

as an exercise in using this new practice I tried an online booking and was given a single choice of available slots, 3 weeks away.

Useless, utterly useless. I shall be raising this issue at my next visit.

funny thing is

Blair played exactly the same game

tim

Still plenty is hand-written. Been talking with a guy who recently had his prostate removed (with all the associated life-long side effects), only to find some months later his biopsy had been mixed up with someone else's who had serious prostate cancer, so he hadn't needed his prostate removed. (It came to light because the other persons prostate test results were inconsistent, and eventually they cross checked the other persons DNA against their biopsy samples, and they didn't match. Then they had to work back through the other patients to find whose they got swapped with.)

My hospital sent me a copy of the letter (by post) the consultant sent to my doctor. No idea if my doctor received it electronically, though.

I'd have preferred to have it via email. Much easier to store than paper.

Oddly, just gone through this loop.

Got a text from my surgery some months ago. Mentioning DoctorLink only. Seemed like a good idea to make a non urgent appointment online, rather than phoning up. So registered with it.

Decided to use it for a repeat prescription. Was informed I needed an activation code from my surgery. Had to collect and return paperwork for that, and show photo ID as proof. Had then to collect the activation paperwork some days later. So three trips to the surgery.

The activation code didn't work with DoctorLink. Then noticed it wasn't on the list of half a dozen or so such things on the paperwork. So registered with one of those. Will see if it actually works when I next need it.

Does that make it OK, then?

No wonder so many hate politicians. It's more important to score points by blaming someone else than correct the ill.

Did you get away with that at work, Tim?

Having been through a few procedures recently, I was followed around by a page of sticky backed bar code etc name labels. Put on everything including your specs. But mistakes can still happen.

We moved recently, and registered with a new doctor. We already had a patientaccess.com signon and assumed that could be switched to the new surgery, but no.

Old account was locked and we had to reapply using a different email address as our original ones were "already registered". The new signon has lost all our previous details (repeats, test results etc), even though the NHS numbers are obviously the same.

We've just had the fun of getting a repeat prescription for our son. He suffers from hayfever, but can't have the usual over the counter meds as he has epilepsy and due to a previous episode is thought to be allergic to them.

We cannot go online to ask for a prescription, as they do not enable any online access for the under 16s, so we phoned and were told they can't do repeats over the phone, so we'd have to go in and fill in a paper form.

Over the phone the receptionist gave my wife the name of the medication from his previous prescription, but couldn't pronounce it as it is a complicated one and said not to worry, they'd get it off the system when we came in.

On arriving, the surgery was deserted, except for one receptionist (not the same one) as everyone else was on a training session.

The receptionist was entirely uncooperative. She first refused to give us the name of the medication, despite us naming the other meds he is on. Finally, she grudgingly conceded, but refused to put in a repeat without making an appointment and seeing the GP, as he hadn't had it for nine months.

When I (politely) pointed out that the reason he hadn't had it was because it was a hayfever medication and so he only needed it for part of each year, but needed it at the same times each year - as per the previous prescriptions, she started off on a rant and complained about my attitude!

In the end my wife pointed out that she knew the particular GP well (first name terms due to a professional relationship) and that he knew our son well and she finally relented.

Why on earth children can't have online access to the system, via a parent, I don't know - and why deliberately obstructive and obnoxious receptionists manage to keep their jobs is another mystery.

SteveW