Safety recommendation
It is recommended that NHSX develops a method of digitally notifying patients of results. This should be used to inform patients of unexpected significant radiological findings after an agreed timeframe. It should be developed in conjunction with the Royal College of Radiologists. The notification system should be tested and evaluated.
Response:
We acknowledge and agree with the report’s recommendation 2019/041 - that a method should be developed to digitally notify patient of unexpected significant radiological findings after an agreed timeframe. We are happy to work with the Royal College of Radiology and other key stakeholders such as the Royal College of General Practice on this issue.
We are already aware of local areas using patient facing portals to provide results to patients and our national work with the GP Connect programme is looking specifically at capabilities to support tasking and alerting to GPs. In response to this recommendation, we are planning to conduct some discovery work over the coming months to look at requirements, potential solutions and guidance that NHSX can provide to improve digital practice and ultimately patient safety..
There will be information governance and integration issues to overcome which we will, of course, work through in partnership with provider organisations.
Response received on 17 October 2019.