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A breach of personal data could do considerable damage, so trusts must build patient privacy into NHS IT systems Electronic record systems are among the most important healthcare advances of our times. They bring better, more sustainable healthcare and offer the NHS the opportunity to make large savings – allowing more public money to be invested in improving patient outcomes. However, a recent survey of more than 1,000 UK citizens revealed that 86.5% of respondents believed a serious breach of personal data would do considerable damage to a hospital's reputation, while 87.2% thought the NHS...

A screening programme at the last Special Olympics revealed the shocking extent of health problems among athletes As a physician working in the East End of London, I am familiar with medically under-served populations. Yet when I began volunteering my time and my company's resources with Special Olympics and its Healthy Athletes programme nearly a decade ago, I was shocked and saddened by the extent of the lack of proper healthcare seen among the athletes with learning disabilities. Healthy Athletes offers athletes free health screenings as well as free services like prescription eyewear, hearing...

As the health service awaits an information strategy launch, the patient from hell comes up with his own suggestions Katie Davis, director general and managing director NHS informatics at the Department of Health, will be launching her NHS information strategy "real soon". This launch was originally planned for the end of 2010. I can understand that it is difficult to create an information strategy that makes sense right now. May I pre-empt her with a few principles that seem relevant to a geriatric patient who has spent his life in the IT industry? As I am just a simple patient, my information...

Dr Mohammad Al-Ubaydli explains how medical practitioners can make the most out of online patient-to-patient networks There is a quiet revolution happening in the way patients and medical professionals communicate, interact and relate to each other and it's a revolution only made possible by online social networks, new forms of social media and mobile technologies. At the heart of this shift are online peer-to-peer support networks such as Health Unlocked and Patients Like Me which enable patients to share details of their medical conditions with people who have the same or similar conditions...

Medical information should be handled by qualified people with specialist skills, any let up in standards could prove fatal Would you trust an unqualified surgeon to replace your hip; an uncertified electrician to re-wire your house or unregistered plumber to install gas central heating? Then why do we persist with unregistered staff managing clinically critical health systems and crucial and confidential medical information? The same goes for health informatics. We need people with specific qualifications subject knowledge, skills and tools to collect information, manage and share it to support...

*** Vinegar, the Patient from Hell, rejects patient choice in favour of a hospital which has treated him for years and doesn't trust paper records I have just started a series of four outpatients appointments with different specialists, to sort out some of the multiple aches and pains of old age. I have chosen to have all these appointments in the same hospital, which has treated me for decades, despite the blandishments of the choose-and-book system and the urge by the government to exercise patient choice. My decision is a bit perverse. The hospital I have chosen, let's call it H hospital...

Fortunately, politicians now seem to agree with groups for patients with long-term conditions that the summary care record is worthwhile, says the Patient from hell Who would have thought it, the Department of Health is encouraging NHS organisations "to accelerate creation of summary care records (SCRs), with the aim of having them in place for most patients by 2013-14" . And 9m records have already been uploaded. This is a miracle. At the general election 18 months ago, both Conservatives and LibDems were equating the SCR with the satanic identity card as a monstrous unmanageable database...