These Redbooks are often part of every parents memory box, that shows us how important they are. Since 2008 the NHS had invested a substantial budget on the community child record but had not been able the connect these systems.
We'd landed 12 men on the moon, brought them back again, landed a satellite in an asteroid but we couldn't link-up child records. Five years ago, with the advent of 'smart' mobile technology, some parents began to ask for an electronic version of this invaluable parent support tool.
In 2014 NHS commissioners in London began 'listening' to social media feedback and looked around to see how we might make it happen for every parent, if this was their choice. We developed a collaboration with 7 of London early years providers who deal with 140,000 pregnant women and 136,000 live births each year. We partnered with Sitekit, who had already been accredited by the Royal College of Community Paediatricians, to develop an initial technology which aligned to the well-loved Red book. London early years providers brought together clinicians, internal ICT teams and strategic decision-makers to test secure connectivity across the key clinical systems and allowing parents to get timely and secure access to their child's immunisation data.
After 12 months gestation and integrated project 'birthing' plan, our London providers, Sitekit and commissioners are delighted to announce we have delivered an initial version of a functional eRedbook. ICT teams (usually competitive in nature) have collaborated, clinicians have passionately contributed planning meetings and parents are now beginning to login and launch their own eRedbook, who are already saying they feel more empowered to understand their child's develop and immunisations. Some pregnant women are launching their eRedbook before the birth so they get used to the useful pages, as well as their own maternity record. With the advent of the Healthy Child Program, the child health & primary care digital strategies and the need for more accurate real-time perinatal and early years information, we are still testing some connections, including making new born screening results available to parents.
As well as parents and clinicians benfiting from this digital project, we will also see an improvement in the quality the timeliness of accurate aggregated information and intelligence for Local Autothorities, Clinical Commissioning Group and Health & Social Care Information Centre (NHS Digital since 01/06/2016).
It is worth noting that no parent or child ID data is ever shared with commissioners or non-providers. The journey is not over but our partners have proven it can happen within 18 months and within limited budget.
Contact [email protected] for more details.