Integrating anaesthesia and intensive care into the National Care Record.

The National Care Record for England is planned to be delivered as part of the National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT) by the National Health Service Connecting for Health. It will be made up from a National Summary Care Record, Local Detailed Care Records and from images in Picture Archiving and Communication Systems. Full benefits for clinical care will only come when there is true integration of the clinical records systems which enables rapid clinical decision support, a consistent user interface, single entry of data items and analysis of information across the full spectrum of clinical care. Currently there are few hospitals with fully electronic anaesthetic or critical care systems, and these are only partly linked to the hospital systems. This limits their benefit to patient care and health care staff. As NPfIT is being mandated for all hospitals in England it is essential to consider now how the next generation of anaesthetic and intensive care systems will integrate with it.