Evening classes for electronic records?

Buried beneath the headlines about smoking bans and combating obesity, the white paper, Choosing Health, says that as part of the drive to improve people’s understanding of health issues: “We will introduce courses on what the new electronic patient care record does and how to use it in planning personal health courses.  These courses will be included in relevant learning curricula for adult education.”

Educational efforts will be focused initially on the most deprived areas.

The white paper, launched by health secretary John Reid, devotes considerable attention to improving access to information about health, tailoring information to meet people’s needs and providing practical support for people who lack basic skills to help them use health information.

Adult education courses on the electronic record and HealthSpace personal record are part of a raft of initiatives aimed at building new opportunities for health into education and development provided in further education and the workplace.

The white paper points out that a 2003 national study by the Department for Education and Skills found that more than a third of people with poor or very poor health also had low literacy skills and that 53% of the population had “entry or lower level” skills in using information and communication technology.

To improve access to information, the white paper promises an expansion of NHS Direct called Health Direct, a multi-media service offering confidential information on health choices. Health Direct, starting in 2007, will be developed as a telephone, internet and digital television service.

The white paper says access to Health Direct will be available to people who do not have internet access at home through the government funded UK Online centres.  These centres provide internet access at low or zero cost in a range of community venues where users can get support to access government services online.

Overall, the government declares that its aim is to guide people to information, not tell them what to do. “The public is now used to consuming a range of goods and services and enjoy the choices available to them.  However, they look to the government to assist them with information about healthy and unhealthy choices. Not to make decisions for them but to provide them with clear information.  Information technology and the internet have transformed the way in which we can communicate information.”