Berkshire to share patient records with Graphnet

Seventeen health and social care organisations across Berkshire will share the care records of 855,000 patients using CareCentric software from Graphnet.

Berkshire East and Berkshire West clinical commissioning groups have selected Graphnet to supply the technology for their Connected Care programme.

Connected Care will link 102 GP practices, Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, South Central Ambulance Service and six local authorities.

Up to 12,000 health and care professionals in Berkshire will have access to the shared records created by pulling information from the various IT systems in use at these organisations, such as Emis Web and Cerner Millennium.

The shared record will also allow care professionals to create and update care plans for patients.

Nigel Foster, finance director for the Berkshire East Clinical Commissioning Groups and programme board lead for the Connected Care project in Berkshire East, said that being able to collaborate in real-time with colleagues will be transformational.  

“We are looking to this project to help us make speedy, informed decisions, deliver more co-ordinated services and ultimately lead to improved clinical effectiveness,” he said.

Patients will have to consent before a health care worker can access their record and users can be shown different levels of information depending on their role.

Patients will also have access to their own record using the CareCentric patient portal.

The procurement was led by NHS South Central and West Commissioning Support Unit acting on behalf of the CCGs, and involved over 70 representatives from the 17 organisations involved.

CSU programme director Andrew Fenton said: “gathering user requirements and gaining consensus from such a broad and diverse group was quite an undertaking, but we now have a system design that will serve the needs of each organisation and every patient. ‘