Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, has admitted that there is no set date planned for the NHS to become paperless.
Giving evidence at the Health and Social Care Committee on 29 January 2025, Pritchard was questioned about whether the NHS is well placed to implement the government’s three healthcare shifts in the forthcoming 10 year health plan.
The committee was the same day a report on NHS financial sustainability was published by the Public Accounts Committee, raising concerns about “the lack of fresh thinking and decisive action” from NHSE and the Department of Health and Social Care.
“The scale of government’s ambitions is great, but senior officials do not seem to have ideas, or the drive, to match the level of change required,” the report said.
At the committee, Danny Beales, Labour MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, asked: “When will pages, fax machines and mountains of letters that were going between primary and secondary care be a thing of the past?”
Pritchard responded that previous secretary of states had regretted making commitments to a paperless NHS because “it’s much more complicated than just doing the secondary care side, it’s back to the connectivity point”.
“At the moment, I think we don’t have a specific timeline of investments and developments that would allow me to say to you, we’ve definitely got it cracked by this particular day,” Pritchard said.
Beales also asked when data sharing of patient records would be expanded to primary care and community care settings.
In response, Julian Kelly, deputy chief executive officer and chief financial officer at NHSE, said: “We have clearly done a lot of work, and will continue to do a lot of work.
“For example, joining up community pharmacies with our acute trust and GP practices. So there is a programme of work.
“There is a lot more that remains to be done.”
He added that work was also underway to enable patients to “join up” with trusts and their GP practices through the NHS App.
Kelly said: “Technology is the thing that will allow some absolutely radical change in the way the NHS works.
“Through the development of the app, we’ll be able to put more of the information and power in the hands of patients themselves.”
Pritchard also spoke about the “big bets” that NHSE had made on transformation, including the development of the NHS App.
She added that priorities for the app included allowing patients to change appointments, have “genuine two way communication”, and allowing proxy access to manage care for children or older people.
Pritchard also said that NHSE would be focusing on the “joining up of different systems” and implementing electronic patient records (EPRs) in the remaining 10% of NHS trusts without them.
“We know the places with a mature EPR tend to have on the evidence collected so far productivity that’s about 13% higher than other trusts.
“So actually, putting the money in to enable everyone to have a decent EPR is a hugely important building block of everything else,” she said.
