Patient confidentiality crucial as the NHS goes paperless, say PHS Datashred
Cardiff (PRWEB UK) 9 July 2013 -- As £260 million of government funding is given to the NHS to support its move to ‘paperless’, PHS Datashred warns that documents need to be securely disposed of to maintain patient confidentiality.
In January this year, the BBC reported that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt had plans for the NHS to be completely paperless by 2018. The aim is to replace outdated paper based systems with electronic notes and prescriptions.
And in May 2013, the Department of Health announced that £260 million has been set aside by the government to help hospitals make their information digitally available to both doctors and patients.
Secure shredding company PHS Datashred welcomes the movement towards an electronic system, but warns that data security will be vital as the NHS transforms from a paper based system to a paperless one.
Anthony Pearlgood, Managing Director of PHS Datashred, said: “The Health Secretary wants all hospitals to be able to share digital data from April 2014.
“This is great news for patients, who will soon be able to get online access to their GP records, book appointments online and order repeat prescriptions over the internet.
“However, when moving from paper files to electronic records, utmost care must be taken to protect patient confidentiality.”
In order to comply with the Data Protection Act, medical records and files need to be securely disposed of when no longer needed at a surgery, clinical, medical centre or hospital.
As the NHS moves towards a paperless structure, this will include the destruction of archived documents that are transferred from paper to digital format.
Anthony Pearlgood said: “Using a secure shredding company will guarantee that confidential material is destroyed in compliance with legislation.
“PHS Datashred provides a reliable data destruction service for healthcare centres across the UK, whether they are looking for onsite or offsite shredding.
“Our lockable containers ensure that confidential information is secure before it is collected, with a lock and slot mechanism preventing any unauthorised access to the contents.
“And because all of our staff are vetted to BS7858 security standard, hospitals will have absolute assurance that patient records are in safe hands.”
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Notes for editors
About PHS
The PHS Group is a leading workplace services provider, and has traded in the UK since 1963. It has a diverse service portfolio aimed at improving work and leisure spaces, while making life much easier for facilities, building and people managers.
PHS really does ‘do more than you think’, providing products and services for:
• Crate rental and packaging
• Interior and exterior planting
• Laundry equipment and workwear
• Matting and flooring
• Records storage and management
• Shredding and recycling
• Testing and compliance
• Washrooms
• Waste management
• Water machines
• Workplace consumables
PHS provides these direct to UK companies, and also operates as a tier one supplier to the facilities management market, supporting the integrated service propositions of most of the major FMs.
The PHS Group’s annual turnover for the year ending March 2012 was £422 million. It employs around 5,000 personnel, operates from a wide network of 153 regional service branches, and takes care of over 250,000 customers at over 450,000 locations in the UK, Ireland, Holland, Belgium and Spain.
Caroline Williams, PHS Datashred, http://www.shredding.info, 02920809130, [email protected]
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