Futurology

The rallying cry to "make every contact count" has formed the headlines about the NHS Future Forum's latest offering. However, it's by no means the only thing the Forum has to say. The other areas attended to are integration, information and education and training. Regarding information (as leaked just before Christmas), there's a stress on effective data sharing and interoperability rather than a national system, along with more explicit support systems to facilitate the roll-out of full patient access to health records by 2015 and a back-to-basics proposal of universal use of the NHS number at the point of data capture (again!). The proposals about integration focus on the principle of "integration around the patient" and the role of electronic accessible care records and patient reported experience measures. Along with the Future Forum's report on education, there is also a paper out from DH on the subject.