National Health Service: Key Targets Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Allan of Hallam
Main Page: Lord Allan of Hallam (Non-affiliated - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Allan of Hallam's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberThe noble Baroness is correct: staff numbers have gone up but, for a number of reasons that we are exploring, output has not gone up by the same amount. It is a key point, and I think all noble Lords agree that making sure we are getting value for money out of the service is important. We are engaged in a productivity study to discover the reasons right now.
My Lords, back in 2013, the Government set a target for the NHS to become paperless by 2018, which they later extended to 2020 when the target seemed too ambitious. This may come as something of a surprise to the millions of people who continue to have regular paper-based interactions with the NHS. Could the Minister tell the House when he now expects the target for the NHS becoming fully digital to be met? Would he agree that it is now even more important that we achieve it than when it was first set over a decade ago?
I definitely agree that it is more important, and that is why I am pleased that we have made such progress. If we look at one area in terms of hospital records being available and doctors’ records to patients, that has gone up since the beginning of the year from about 1% of GPs to about 90% today. About 90% of all our hospital records are now digitised, compared to less than 3% in Germany. We have made massive progress, and it is key to all of the reform and to improving productivity across the NHS.