THE AIM OF THE COLLABORATIVE

• to raise awareness of record access (RA) nationally and internationally
• to make RA as useful to patients and health care professionals as possible by linking data to facilitate understanding and empower patients to share decisions if they want to.
• to increase the take-up of RA by patients and practices, with possible extension to other healthcare organizations such as outpatient departments and pharmacies
• to support the development of national standards for RA.

DEVELOPING AND SUPPORTING THE ACCESS COLLABORATIVE

The collaborative is intended to be a network of organisations and individuals who are interested and supportive of RA. This will include NHS Connecting for Health (NHS CFH) in England, private companies, common interest companies, groups such as the NHS Alliance and Patient Information Forum, and individuals. It will also include patients and patients? groups.

The RAC is funded by EMIS. The RAC lead is Dr Brian Fisher, GP in SE London.

The RAC includes the following organisations:

• Connecting for Health
• NHS Alliance
• BMA
• GMC
• EMIS
• PAERS
• InPS
• ICMCC
• PIF
• AMIA
• Graphnet
• Health eCard
• Foldercare

It also involves practices who are using record access or are considering it. An increasing number of patients and patient organisations are also involved. These include:

• Asthma UK
• Diabetes UK
• LMCA
• Alzheimers Society
• MIND

RAISING AWARENESS OF RA

RA is no longer a new concept. The challenge remains to bring the ideas and the reality to a wide audience and, in the process, both identify the obvious benefits but also examine any real difficulties that arise.

The aim of this aspect of the collaborative would be to:

• marshal the evidence for safety and evidence-based benefits
• advise on or carry out research on RA
• examine and address practitioners' fears and concerns, including:
  • fears that RA will lengthen consultations
  • concerns that RA will expose clinicians' data quality and encourage litigation
  • concerns over security and confidentiality
  • concerns over third party information
  • fears of losing control over aspects of the clinical encounter and management of the patient.
• examine and address patients' fears and concerns
• ensure that ideas and achievements are disseminated and heard
• link RA with other key processes such as training, Patient and Public Involvement (PPI), performance management
• link with specific interest groups such as patients with long-term conditions.