The London Care Record has saved health and care professionals’ time up to a value of £44.4 million, helping them provide safe and effective care more quickly, according to an independent economic evaluation published by OneLondon today.
Introduced in 2020, the London Care Record is a secure way to share patient information with health and care professionals across the Capital, so they have the information they need at the point of care to inform their clinical decision-making.
In total, the London Care Record has been used almost 40 million times and become a vital tool for health and care staff across the Capital and beyond. This includes supporting safe prescribing of medications, quicker hospital discharges and helping staff spend more time with patients.
Earlier this year, OneLondon commissioned Queen’s University Belfast to undertake an independent economic evaluation of the London Care Record, focusing on reported benefits relating to time-saving, quality and safety outcomes. The evaluation is intended to help OneLondon and its partners assess the value their investment in the London Care Record delivers for the communities they serve. The key findings include:
- Based on 27 million uses of the London Care Record (up to March 2023), the value of time saved is estimated to be up to £44.4 million.
- As of January 2023, the value of time saved equates to £2.1 million per month.
- As of January 2023, the amount of time saved was estimated to be around 1.3 million minutes per month.
- Safety benefits are harder to directly attribute to the London Care Record and more research is needed to do this.
Luke Readman, director of digital transformation for NHS England (London), said: “While further analysis is needed in some areas these findings already demonstrate that the London Care Record is an essential and ‘must have’ tool for our frontline staff that genuinely supports more effective, safer and quicker care.
“Based on this report, I am confident that the London Care Record will continue to play a central role in health and care for many years to come.”
Professor Mark Lawler, professor of digital health at Queen’s University Belfast and co-lead of Health Data Research UK’s Big Data for Complex Disease Research Driver Programme, added: “This study is the first of its type to evaluate the economic, time-saving and safety impact of a significant digital health intervention in the UK.
“The London Care Record, a project of the OneLondon initiative, has been used nearly 40 million times by health and care workers within London to help accelerate 21st century healthcare. The intelligence that we have generated emphasises the critical importance of digital transformation in enhancing the quality of care that we deliver to our patients and provides crucial evidence that this approach must be adopted across the UK.”