Even the patients?

I seriously doubt that

I think it is pretty evident that the waste in the NHS is not clinical but administrational - these types of initiatives should help to improve this position.

Will that affect patient care - unlikely. The problem comes if you reduce the clinical side and keep all the admin then patient care suffers.

Do you really think those in the administration side are going to cut their own jobs? Really?
What will get cut is patient care and frontline staff wages.

In fact the NHS (and the public sector generally) has a lower manager/admin to 'coalface' workers ratio than the private sector.

And, despite the introduction of an artificial internal market by the 1979-1997 government, continued by the last Labour government, transaction costs are lower than in a private market between private companies. Administrative 'waste' is a myth … see the Commonwealth Fund report reference in the link below

[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/heal-our-hospitals/8884323/The-NHS-delivers-fast-patient-care-so-why-privatise-an-NHS-hospital.htmlA doctor blogs[/url
btw - 'administration' is a key part of clinical care: without records how do doctors, nurses, physios, etc know what to do?

Yeah but does that really happen in the real, real world?

Agreed but records can be created/stored recalled in a more efficient basis than they currently seem to be. All this paper seems very outdated and double handling? I visited my cardiologist on Friday for sign off after my op - the file was a paper thing made up of single sheets collated from various hospitals. I bet all these documents will be stored individually electronically at each hospital. Someone will have had to collate them there will have been costs involved in transporting them. Surely it is not beyond the wit of man to store these documents electronically?

On your first point to make any sense you have to compare like for like - not sure how that is possible given the unique work mix in the public sector. Do we have many private courts, council tax offices, parks and gardens etc Do the public sector run many supermarkets etc etc?

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/03/nhs-database-digital-disasterYep, it's dead easy. Cheap as chips too[/url

Well, the article says it all really.
Trouble is that government agencies just aren't used to specifying what they want and don't seem to understand that a supplier is only going to supply what you asked for, not what what you somehow assumed you'd get.

Indeed, mind the whole process began in 1997 and the rate of change in technology meant that systems put in place then were out of date less than three years later. The whole project was just huge and the never ending shift of features they end user wanted just kept the whole thing form being finalised.

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/14/bureaucrats-nhs-andrew-lansley?CMP=twt_guWho exactly are the 'bureaucrats' wrecking the NHS?[/url

Yet again your knowledge of the real world is astounding.
It is and would be incredibly difficult to electronically store, secure and access patients notes for a few simple reasons:-
1. Cost
2. Security
3. Access

1. The cost to develop a system to scan in the hundreds of pages of patients notes that are of different sizes, layouts and often with difficult to recognise handwriting would be huge, and that's just general medical notes. Nevermind the myriad of different departments notes that make up the totality of 1 patients' notes all of which are of different sizes, layouts & styles and with different identifiers.

2 & 3. To effectively utilise an electronic system the noted would have to be stored on some kind of national database like the DVLA database, except this would be 100 times more complicated and 1000 times more sensitive data. It would be very difficult to restrict access enough to keep patient data confidential but open enough so that the notes can actually be accessed effectively by those who need to. Not to mention the possibility of hacking in to the database which isn't a danger at the moment with the notes in paper form.
Also if the hospital network goes down it means they have lost access to patients notes, whereas they can still access them at the moment.
Plus if the notes are in electronic form it requires doctors/nurses etc to be equipped with ipad type devices, linked to a hospital network (security issues again) to then be able to input anything to those notes, whereas now they merely require a biro.

If starting a notes system from scratch it might be easier but I still can't see paper notes going away for another 50 years yet.

Notes have to be kept for a certain amount of years depending on the type of note too and are (generally) currently stored in that format. It would require a huge database to store these notes that are often never needed again until their destruction date which is sometimes for as long as 25-30 years.

The technology may be starting to appear to make it possible, but it's not perfected yet and it would require a massive cost to implement and the security issues still can't be addressed yet. Currently it's far cheaper, easier, more efficient and secure to use paper notes.

And, why is Lansley not publishing the findings of the internal "Risk report" ?

Oh because ... "[ireleasing the risk register <snip> would have "jeopardised the success of the policy[/i".

Well, there you go, we mustn't worry our pretty little heads about it.
So much for Freedom of Information.

Don't talk soft.

In the real world, you just tell that speccy little geek in IT to get on with it and sharpish, if he still wants a job come Christmas

Now you see that might have worked if the IT department hadn't been outsourced to a private company

Absolute b*ll*x !! how come the french have had a superb computerised records system for at least ten years - the latest system now being introduced will be even more user friendly - it's a simple card with a microchip thingy which saves oodles of paperwork not to mention time...

I'm interested... what data is on the card?

any data relating to medical or dental treatment received at any hospital,doctors or dentists surgery anywhere in france - also included are details of the complementary insurance which may or may not be taken up by the holder of the card.

The latest cards now being issued include the holders photo

If you visit a new doctor,dentist or hospital/clinic you are asked to provide extra proof of identity with photo etc

no bank details or other personal info is on the card

It's not absolute bollox, I ran an NHS Medical Records Archive for 7 years during which time the computerisation of medical records was discussed and the issues I just outlined were the main reasons as to why the Executive Board assigned more money to the storage of paper records as they didn't think the computerisation would go ahead.

I have no idea what the French system is like, what data is stored, accessed and by whom but I know that attempting to transfer the current NHS medical records system onto a totally computerised form would be incredibly difficult and probably impossible right now.
There is not just the standard medical record, there is (just off the top of my head):
A&E Cas cards
Maternity notes
Deceased casenotes
Psychiatric Notes
Mental Hospital notes
School Health cards
Blood Transfusion Forms
Organ Transplant Forms
Paediatric Notes
Oncology notes
Opthalmology notes
Physiotherapy notes
Occupational Health notes
Xrays
Breast Screening notes
SCBU notes
ICU notes
Cardiology notes
Neurosciences notes
Orthopaedics notes
Pharmacy notes
Dietetics notes
Labs blocks & slides

that are all stored seperately to the general medical file and I'm sure there are more. All are currently in different formats, with different layouts, with different identifiers, stored in different ways for differing time periods. And that's just from the hospital, never mind GP's and walk-in centre notes.

Out of interest do you mean the carte vitale? Or is it something different?

Just to add: our local GP managed to lose both our sets of records – due to predictive spelling.

Did you tell him to look for Tony's under "Comminicative Respiratory Diseases"?

with respct if you bothered to read 'Him's notes you will see the reference was for medical records -my reply was that medical records - that is to repeat for the last time is to do with hospital,doctors & dentists visits and treatments
the dozens of other things you list are treated in a different way some manually with papers/files and others electronically - ie: one example : any X- ray or Scan results are given to the patient within afew minutes of them being taken - they become the property of the patient not the hospital or doctor though the patients doctor will receive a copy of the conclusions.Similar for blood tests which are known within a few hours normally and handed or sent to the patient as well as a copy to their doctor
it's a whole new system,one which generally works brilliantly and puts the uk system and most other national sytems to shame

yes it's the Carte Vitale

So it's nothing more than a precis of medical history then and if the patient doesn't happen to have their latest x-rays or scan results on them, when they are run over by a bus, they're as fooked as we are?