News

BT has won the 10-year, £620m contract to set up and run the electronic care record service designed to revolutionise health and social care information.

By 2010 every NHS patient in England will have an electronic care record detailing their social care and health treatments. More than 30,000 GPs and 270 acute community and mental health NHS trusts will be connected to it.

Health secretary John Reid said: "The NHS record will revolutionise the way information is accessed and will make available efficient, secure and integrated records to the right people at the right time."

He added that records would be available 24 hours a day "to ensure vital information about an individual's health and care can be instantly available to health professionals".