Minister commends eRedbook at NHS Leadership Summit as Exemplar

Life Sciences Minister George Freeman MP has announced his intention to launch a Department of Health programme to accelerate access to digital services and has cited eRedbook as an exemplar of what he wants to achieve.

During the NIB Leadership Summit, part of the eHealth Week conference, the Minister, who recently visited Sitekit’s Edinburgh office, commended the eRedbook for offering a digital identity that could be used as the start of 'a lifelong Summary Care Record':

"I'm looking for tangible mechanisms by which we can accelerate the most exciting digital technologies. I saw one recently that I couldn't help but be bowled over by: the little Red Book, that parents get when their baby is born. (…) How wonderful if we could digitise that: keep the Red Book identity, but to put those infants online on day one, start the Summary Care Record for the newly born, and use that to drive as an arrowhead through the system, a generational cohort of youngsters who have got a fully digital record from birth."

The eHealth week conference is organised by HiMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) and BCS (The Chartered Institute for IT) and took place at Olympia in London. The event is used by the National Information Board (NIB) to share NHS strategy and progress on delivering the ‘Personalised Health and Care 2020’ strategy which is a framework for action set out to deliver national digital health policy. The leadership summit is designed to update national leaders, chief executives and chief clinical information officers.

Link to video with the Minister’s reference at the NIB Leadership Summit