Info standards site launched

A new website dedicated to information standards in health and social care has been launched today.

The site has been developed by the Health and Social Care Information Centre, NHS England, the Department of Health and other commissioning partners.

It is aimed at information standards professionals across health and social care and provides a single location for all information standards, along with supporting material such as e-learning, implementation guidance and case studies.

Users of the site can also become active participants in the development of standards, by “facilitating the sharing of materials, user experiences and views on existing and potential future standards”, an NHS England statement says.

NHS England head of health information standards and information governance Kathy Farndon said: “developers and appraisers, system suppliers, health and care professionals and policy leads all have a part to play and all of our voices need to inform the commissioning, development and adoption of information standards.

“We see infostandards.org as an important resource that will support this broad community to collaborate openly and purposefully to deliver and adopt high quality, cost effective standards.”

The site includes a link to information on the Future Hospital report published this month by the Royal College of Physicians, which made eight recommendations in relation to information standards.

It recommended that all systems for recording data about patients should be electronic and that clinical data should be recorded according to national standards for structure and content.

Dr Ken Lunn, HSCIC director of information standards delivery, said: “openness and increased engagement with end users can only improve the development, delivery and adoption of effective information standards.

“Standards are essential to the delivery of improved, digitally enabled health and care services and by collaborating with the wider community we can tackle together the challenges we all face,” he added.