Ming Tang, interim chief digital and knowledge officer at NHS England (Credit score: NHSE)
Ming Tang, interim chief digital and knowledge officer at NHS England, mentioned that the only affected person document (SPR) will join present methods, quite than create a brand new one.
Talking at Digital Well being’s 10 yr plan webinar on 7 November 2025, Tang mentioned that the SPR could be “a set of Lego bricks” connecting present methods resembling digital affected person data and shared care data in order that “clinicians and sufferers can view a trusted, longitudinal document”.
She referred to as the SPR “a as soon as in a technology alternative to attach the NHS and make it actually patient-centred”, however harassed that cultural change, scientific security and public belief will probably be key to its success.
“What we’re actually attempting to do is federate.
“It’s not a large new platform or an enormous information lake. We need to floor the suitable information for the suitable use case, in the suitable context,” Tang defined.
Lee Rickles, chief info officer at Humber Instructing NHS Basis Belief and director of the Yorkshire and Humber Care Report, welcomed the imaginative and prescient, however warned that many shared care data stay “technically fragmented and financially unsustainable”.
“There’s some good work throughout the group, however we haven’t cracked sustainability,” he mentioned.
“Suppliers must step as much as open requirements, and we have to be extra bold. Sending PDFs between methods isn’t ok — that’s failure.”
From a neighborhood authorities perspective, Ian Anderson, director of authorized providers and partnerships at Hull Metropolis Council, argued that integration should lengthen past the NHS to incorporate social care and voluntary organisations.
“It’s not nearly a affected person presenting at A&E. We have to perceive the information held in native authority and voluntary methods.
“The SPR can solely work if we see it as a part of a whole-system strategy,” he mentioned.
Basil Bekdash, scientific security officer at Sheffield Kids’s NHS Basis Belief, mentioned that unresolved points round legal responsibility and information possession might undermine the programme.
“We haven’t but agreed what occurs when issues go mistaken.
“Who’s accountable if hurt happens by means of entry to shared information? With out clear governance, we danger organisations pointing fingers quite than studying,” he mentioned.
Emma Jackson, chief allied well being skilled and nursing info officer at Norfolk Neighborhood Well being and Care NHS Belief, shared an instance of how fragmented info impacts frontline care.
She described spending 4 days attempting to determine the suitable psychological well being group for a affected person in disaster — a state of affairs that might have been prevented with built-in entry to their medical data.
Tang confirmed that NHS England is negotiating with telecom suppliers to make sure that the NHS App utilization stays free from cell information expenses and that future updates will embody multilingual help.
She additionally acknowledged ongoing work to simplify proxy entry and be sure that sufferers retain management over who can view their information.
The SPR will probably be launched progressively, beginning with maternity, frailty and end-of-life care, and will probably be enabled by a brand new authorized framework to underpin information sharing and implement interoperability requirements, Tang mentioned.
She added that round half of the funding will go towards change administration quite than know-how — a deliberate shift geared toward avoiding previous errors.
Panellists agreed that collaboration, not centralisation, will decide the programme’s success.
Rickles mentioned: “Let’s hold the give attention to the affected person and on altering how we work, not simply the methods we use.”
