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NHS 'numbers for babies' goes live

By Rachel Fielding  [29-10-2002]

First step towards electronic patient records

A revolutionary computerised 'numbers for babies' system went live 
across the NHS at midnight on 29 October, marking a significant step 
towards the goal of electronic patient records.  

Starting today, all babies born in England and Wales will be issued with 
a unique NHS number at birth, helping to ensure that personal records 
are consistent and universally available to relevant NHS staff from day 
one.  

Previously babies had to wait until their civil registration at the 
Registrar of Births and Deaths before receiving their NHS number, 
often as long as six weeks after birth.  

During that time, the baby may have undergone tests and treatment in 
different locations, and may possibly have changed name or address.  

The NHS number will now be issued by midwives though a new 
computerised Central Issue System (CIS), developed and supported by 
BT's systems integration arm Syntegra in a deal worth around [Pounds] 
2m over eight years.  

The CIS is accessed via an online TCP/IP transaction using HTTP and 
Secure Socket Layer for encryption through existing maternity systems 
over the NHSnet secure wide area network.  

Martin Weller, communications manager at the NHS Information 
Authority, said: "The new system marks an important advance in NHS 
administration.  

"It provides additional safeguards in the key early stages of a child's 
life and ensures that a comprehensive health record is available wherever 
and whenever it is needed."  

The NHS number provides a common link between a patient's records 
across the NHS, both electronic and manual, and is the cornerstone 
of the move towards electronic health records.  

By 31 March next year, all electronic communications about patients 
must include their NHS number. Trusts will also need to purchase full 
clinical information systems to deliver Level 3 Electronic Patient 
Records by 2005.  

The NHS number is expected to improve the efficiency of research, and 
healthcare providers will also be able to speed up processes such as 
invitations for screening and reporting screening results by using it 
to identify patients and records accurately.  

Those maternity departments without an NN4B-compliant system by 28 
June were provided with an Interim NHS Numbering System (INNS) from 
Syntegra free of charge.  

Currently, only two-thirds of the 243 maternity units in England and 
Wales have systems capable of issuing NHS numbers.  

"Many units have needed to embrace IT for the first time. Some sites 
are running INNS in parallel with their existing systems for a short 
period of time," said Weller.  

"Most issues revolve around the varying technical infrastructure set-ups 
implemented at different sites.  

"Differing versions of operating systems, firewalls, proxy servers and 
email clients provided a significant challenge which seems to have been 
overcome."  

In the event of the CIS becoming unavailable, the service will switch 
immediately to a full 24/7 disaster recovery system, which should be  
totally transparent to NHS Trusts and their users.

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Source - VNU Net News - http://www.vnunetnews.com/News/1136387


Cheers, Steve..

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