It has been said that the British rulers believe that healthcare workers
beliefs and way of working may be freely changed by decree.
Under the umbrella of the British National Health Service (NHS), a new
set of standards for keeping records of team-based care in all formats,
(including electronic records) have been set up intending to assemble
best practices medicine, dentistry, nursing, midwifery, and other
medical related activities.
According to Prof. Martin Severs, from the NHS Information Standards
Board, these standards are a synthesis of those standards that are
common to the three regulatory bodies, the General Medical Council
(GMC), the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and the Health
Professions Council (HPC).
Those standards refer to:
1. Clinical record confidentiality;
2. Communication of clinical related information (to other healthcare
workers and to the patients);
3. Process principles (including courtesy rules related to the way
healthcare workers informally classify "slightly different" patients);
4. Healthcare worker skills (professionals must keep up to date on
policy, law and best practice relating to information and record keeping
and to be proficient in using the systems).
It seems (once again?) that now that these new rules are out, all will
be well in the British NHS.
The (rather small) NHS document is available from:
http://www.isb.nhs.uk/pages/docs/healthrec_compractice.pdf
J. Antas
