BT is building the national database and transactional messaging service for the NHS - known as the Spine - a secure national database of key information about patients' healthcare.
The Spine is at the heart of the NHS National Care Records Service, which over time will begin to provide healthcare professionals with quicker access to reliable information, helping them provide better, safer care to patients. It will comprise of two elements: locally held records at GP surgeries or hospitals (detailed records) and a nationally held Summary Care Record (SCR) contained on the Spine.
Summary Care Records are currently being created for patients in a small number of Early Adopter Primary Care Trusts in England. This will contain limited - but important - information about patients such as details of allergies, current prescriptions and any bad reactions to medicines.
The Summary Care Record and the detailed record held locally, together create an electronic NHS Care Record for every patient in England who does not object to having one. It will give authorised healthcare professionals secure access to reliable information about patients to help with their treatment, while helping the NHS to operate far more efficiently and effectively.
The Spine is much more than a database. It is also a powerful messaging system that underpins many new services being rolled out as part of the National Programme for IT in the NHS in England such as the Electronic Prescriptions Service and Choose and Book.
Since being awarded the contract to build the Spine in 2003, BT has developed the systems and services to support more than half a million registered users. It is one of the world's largest transactional databases, containing the demographic information of more than 70 million patients.
For the latest deployment statistics, visit the NHS Connecting for Health website.