NHS Research Capability Programme Workshops

Workshops are being held to demonstrate how the NHS Care Records Service can provide England with unique and unrivalled opportunities in health to deliver huge benefits for patients.

The NHS Care Records Service is being introduced in the NHS in England over the next few years. This secure service will link patient information from different parts of the NHS electronically so authorised NHS staff and patients have the information they need to make care decisions. ‘Cradle-to-grave’ electronic patient records also offer researchers the opportunity to study the complete patient journey. This opens up opportunities to track diseases over long periods and to assess the impact and long term effectiveness of different treatment options.

NHS Connecting for Health, which is supporting the NHS to deliver the NHS Care Records Service as part of the National Programme for IT, is running these workshops for health researchers, and patient representatives and clinicians with an interest in health research at three locations during March.

Aims
The purpose of these workshops is to make patients representatives, clinicians and the research community aware of the work of the new Research Capability Programme. This programme has been set up to enable research to achieve its full potential as a core activity of the NHS, alongside other uses of NHS data that lead to improvements in the quality and safety of care.

The events will take place from 10am – 1pm on:

4 March 2008, NEC, Birmingham
Chaired by Professor Ian Diamond

11 March 2008, Mary Ward House, London
Chaired by Professor Ian Diamond

17 March 2008, Leeds University, Leeds
Chaired by Professor Sir Alex Markham

The event will be particularly relevant for academics interested in using electronic records for health research, and those working in the pharmacovigilance field in industry.