NHS: Electronic Patient Record Systems

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble and gallant Lord is right. Your Lordships’ House will be aware that, of the three main shifts that will be amplified in the 10-year plan, this plays very well into not only analogue to digital but the move from hospital to community, and sickness to prevention. The noble and gallant Lord is right that we need digital capability across aspects of not just the NHS but social care. We are developing various aspects, including the federated data platform and single patient records. We are engaging with the public and stakeholders to understand their views about the use of health data so that we can get it absolutely right.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, Oracle Cerner and Epic, the two electronic patient record systems that the NHS is purchasing, running to billions of pounds, were designed primarily for the US healthcare system and have not been significantly customised for the NHS. This is leading to a serious lack of alignment with the requirements of the British healthcare model. What assessment have the Government made of this issue and how confident are they that value for money and improved outcomes can be achieved, given that these systems have not been tailored specifically for the NHS?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

There are huge gains to be made in digitisation, which I know that the noble Lord shares my view on. It is crucial that we get it right. I assure him that procurement processes are carried out as we would always expect them to be and that we are satisfied that the right provision can be made.