Country profile: United Kingdom

There is no unified British healthcare system. Instead, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are managed by four distinct National Health Systems ("Health and Care service" in the case of Northern Ireland), although it is the English NHS that represents Great Britain as a whole in exterior matters. Therefore, Great Britain encompassed four distinct healthcare systems, each with its own unique characteristics.

ICT use and eHealth strategy

The UK has a highly developed eHealth infrastructure as a whole. Nearly all GP practices have computers with Internet access (only a quarter of which aren’t broadband), which they use readily during healthcare encounters. The use of Decision Support Systems is extremely widespread, with only one out of five GP practices not utilizing them. The networked transmission of data is also comparatively well established in the UK healthcare system, with one third of all GP practices transferring patient data to other healthcare providers and nearly half exchanging administrative data with reimbursers. ePrescription remains a rare ocurrence, being a relatively recent introduction to the English healthcare system specifically.

Great Britain basically pursues several distinct healthcare strategies, as each NHS develops its own solutions in accordance with its respective legal framework.

All NHS do, however, see the development of eHealth services as crucial for the future, and are independently developing state-of-the-art eHealth solutions.

For instance, England pursues the introduction of EHRs through the NHS Care Records Service, which is intended to include a traditional EHR component as well as a dedicated network allowing the safe transfer of said records. It also includes provisions for more advanced services, such as hospital appointment scheduling solutions and eRadiology solutions. England has also introduced an ePrescription service, which is supposed to expand gradually to encompass all potential prescribers, including walk-in clinics and dental practices in England.

Scotland, on the other hand, has also established a cohesive eHealth strategy, which includes an EHR implementation (which is planned to go online in 2010) as well as ePrescription services, though they haven’t been implemented to date. Scotland is also developing specialized eHealth applications to help in triage settings, interlinking ambulance services, electronic referral services, as well as eRadiology / picture archiving solutions, secure communication networks (SCI Gateway) and Telemedical applications.

Legal Framework

Great Britain encompasses a set of distinct legal frameworks just as it encompasses four distinct healthcare systems. In general, the fact that healthcare is provided directly through National Health Services significantly eases the legal prerequisites to implement eHealth services. As the advanced nature of the British eHealth landscape indicates, the necessary amendments have generally already been made, assuring not only the possibility of introducing ePrescription and EHR solutions, but guaranteeing their equality to their traditional counterparts as well.