The new national standard for ‘core’ personal information

The need for a coordinated system:

The fragmented nature of record keeping in health and social care has been a barrier to personalised and coordinated care for individuals.

A while back National Voices and other organisations started working with the Informatics Unit at the Royal College of Physicians, and together identified the need for an organisation to define, develop and approve common standards for digital health and care records.

The Professional Records Standards Body (PRSB) was created, with National Voices being a founding member. PRSB standards enable professionals to enter information consistently into common templates, with relevant clinical coding.

The New Standard:

Commissioned by the NHS, and following extensive consultation which National Voices helped to promote, the PRSB has completed a new ‘core information standard’ for the UK.

This responds to increasing speed and ambition to join up all of a person’s digital health and care records. The pace is being set by Local Health and Care Record areas (LHCRs) covering very large populations – such as the Thames Valley and Surrey area, with which we have been working, and which has 2.8m residents.

Although most people in England can currently access a Summary Care Record, these have a limited capability, especially if one has multiple long term conditions. The SCR will effectively be superceded by the new standard.

What’s in the core record?

The PRSB has published a map of the core record to show which fields are included. This will now be trialled by the LHCR areas, and so is Version 1, for further development.

Why is this important for National Voices members?

We have invested time in this agenda because we understand from members that a single, shared and easily accessed personal record can enable more coordinated and person centred care, providing the information that both the person, and their professionals and staff, need to participate together in personalised care planning, and supported self management.

This core record builds on an existing PRSB standard for personalised care plans which we, with many members, helped to create.

It has fields not just for clinical information but for ‘About Me’ information such as personal goals, the activities you are undertaking to manage your health, your care and support needs and plans, and contingency planning for emergencies.

We have endorsed the record on the coalition’s behalf.