Amir Hannan

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Amir Simon Hannan MBE is an English doctor who works as a General Practitioner in Tameside and has pioneered patients having access and understanding to their Electronic health records in the English National Health Service. [1]

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He grew up in a family of doctors – his mother was a gynaecologist who later became a GP. [2]

Amir is Chair of West Pennine Local Medical Committee and Chair of the Association of Greater Manchester Local Medical Committees

He is also Chair of the World Health Innovation Summit.

General practice

He joined Haughton Thornley Medical Centres in Hyde and Haughton Green in 2000 after it took over the Market Street practice which was formerly run by Dr Harold Shipman when he started his career. The practice is in a deprived neighbourhood with a large Bengali population. He saw giving patients access to their GP electronic health records and gaining a better understanding of their health and healthcare needs as a way of rebuilding trust in a difficult situation. [3] He told the BBC: "The week before I started there was a sit-down protest in the waiting room, because the patients were not happy about this doctor that was being foisted on them. That gives you some idea of the battlefield I was walking into". 150 patients at the practice were given access to their medical records and test results over the internet in 2007. [4] Prof Steve Field of the Care Quality Commission recounted: “It was very difficult to recruit to Shipman’s practice because of [the lack of] trust locally. But Amir said, ‘Right from the start I will share everything with my patients, and gave them access to all their own records. He’s got examples of patients being admitted to hospital where they have had to show the consultants their record which may have saved their lives. It’s policy to try and make it happen. But it’s not moving quickly enough.” [5] As of May 2015, 34% of the patient population were accessing to their GP record. There was no difference between the proportion of Bengali patients doing so and the rest of the practice population. [6] By December 2020, 10,000 patients (76% of the patient population) had full access to their GP electronic health records and a better understanding of their healthcare needs. You can see the latest data here.

He was one of the GPs who signed a letter to Liz Truss in 2022 urging more investment in primary care where they said surgeries were sinking under the weight of demand leading to wider health inequalities. [7]

Record access

He was one of the first GPs pioneering Patient record access using EMIS software. He says "there are some doctors and nurses who have genuine concerns about patients suddenly being let loose to access their records without any controls in place or without clinicians having to do anything and a feeling of irresponsibility that that raises." [8] Jacqui Gladwin, a nursing lecturer who is one of his patients, was worried about online access. She asked:"What happens if patients see information that is incorrect? How safe is the system? What happens if they see something distressing when the surgery is closed?" She was surprised to find that other patients in the practice did not share her worries. At a meeting at the practice to discuss the development of records access, several patients had found errors in their records. They were positive about being able to identify errors and the response they had received when they reported them. They felt trusted to own the information, and secure when travelling abroad that they could allow other health professionals to access their medical information. [9]

He speaks regularly about the benefits of giving patients access to their full GP electronic health records, and about how this works at his practice. [10] And in 2008 he authored the Patient Access to Medical Records pattern [11] of the Liberating Voices pattern language.

Research in which Hannan participated showed that practices who give at least a third of their patients full online access to their records could experience a decrease in appointment demand of up to 12%. Dr Brian Fisher, one of the other participants in the study conceded that as the practices concerned were leaders in their field with regard to offering online access to medical records, it could be difficult to extrapolate the results. [12]

He has defended the government's Summary Care Record project, which has been criticised by other GPs on the grounds of cost. Each time an SCR was accessed for a patient in 2012 it cost £1,200. He says "The SCR isn’t a panacea, it’s just one solution". [13] He was, however, critical of the care.data fiasco, saying "If patients felt that their data was leaking out, and I had not warned them about it, then that would destroy my relationship with them." [14]

He was ranked in the Health Service Journal's list of Clinical Leaders in 2015. [15] He was awarded an MBE in the 2021 New Year Honours. [16]

Related Research Articles

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General practice is the name given in various nations, such as the United Kingdom, India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa to the services provided by general practitioners. In some nations, such as the US, similar services may be described as family medicine or primary care. The term Primary Care in the UK may also include services provided by community pharmacy, optometrist, dental surgery and community hearing care providers. The balance of care between primary care and secondary care - which usually refers to hospital based services - varies from place to place, and with time. In many countries there are initiatives to move services out of hospitals into the community, in the expectation that this will save money and be more convenient.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Family medicine</span> Medical specialty

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal College of General Practitioners</span> Professional body for doctors in the UK

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) is the professional body for general (medical) practitioners in the United Kingdom. The RCGP represents and supports GPs on key issues including licensing, education, training, research and clinical standards. It is the largest of the medical royal colleges, with over 50,000 members. The RCGP was founded in 1952 in London, England and is a registered charity. Its motto is Cum Scientia Caritas – "Compassion [empowered] with Knowledge."

General medical services (GMS) is the range of healthcare that is provided by general practitioners as part of the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. The NHS specifies what GPs, as independent contractors, are expected to do and provides funding for this work through arrangements known as the General Medical Services Contract. Today, the GMS contract is a UK-wide arrangement with minor differences negotiated by each of the four UK health departments. In 2013 60% of practices had a GMS contract as their principle contract. The contract has sub-sections and not all are compulsory. The other forms of contract are the Personal Medical Services or Alternative Provider Medical Services contracts. They are designed to encourage practices to offer services over and above the standard contract. Alternative Provider Medical Services contracts, unlike the other contracts, can be awarded to anyone, not just GPs, don't specify standard essential services, and are time limited. A new contract is issued each year.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Health Service (England)</span> Publicly-funded healthcare system in England

The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England, and one of the four National Health Service systems in the United Kingdom. It is the second largest single-payer healthcare system in the world after the Brazilian Sistema Único de Saúde. Primarily funded by the government from general taxation, and overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS provides healthcare to all legal English residents and residents from other regions of the UK, with most services free at the point of use for most people. The NHS also conducts research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Dixon (doctor)</span> British general practitioner

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clinical commissioning group</span>

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Out-of-hours services are the arrangements to provide access to healthcare at times when General Practitioner surgeries are closed; in the United Kingdom this is normally between 6.30pm and 8am, at weekends, at Bank Holidays and sometimes if the practice is closed for educational sessions.

Patient record access in the United Kingdom has developed most fully in respect of the GP record, because computerisation in that field is almost universal. British hospitals were slower to move into electronic records. From 1 April 2015 all GP practices in England have to provide online services to patients, including access to summary electronic medical records.

EMIS Health, formerly known as Egton Medical Information Systems, supplies electronic patient record systems and software used in primary care, acute care and community pharmacy in the United Kingdom. The company is based in Leeds. It claims that more than half of GP practices across the UK use EMIS Health software and holds number one or two market positions in its main markets. In June 2022 the company was acquired by Bordeaux UK Holdings II Limited, an affiliate of UnitedHealth’s Optum business for a 49% premium on EMIS’s closing share price.

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References

  1. ↑ Shelley, Matthew (13 March 2015). "Paperless NHS supplement: Technology – instant access". Health Service Journal . Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  2. ↑ "Q&A: patient access pioneer Dr Amir Hannan". Health Service Journal. 28 November 2013. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  3. ↑ "Increasing access to patient records". Nursing Times . 30 August 2013. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  4. ↑ "Web records prove hit with patients". BBC News . 5 February 2007. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  5. ↑ "Failure to join up medical records is a 'health risk', says GP chief inspector". The Independent . 2 September 2014. Archived from the original on 6 September 2014. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
  6. ↑ "Rising Stars: Inspiring campaign promises self care". Health Service Journal. 13 May 2015. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  7. ↑ "GPs call for Truss to focus on poverty 'crisis' and invest in practices". Pulse. 7 September 2022. Retrieved 8 November 2022.
  8. ↑ Hannan, Amir. "BACK TO SCHOOL FOR DOCTORS, NURSES AND PATIENTS". Amir Hannan's Blog. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  9. ↑ Gladwin, Jacqui (30 August 2013). "Increasing access to patient records". Nursing Times. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  10. ↑ "Realising the potential of primary care". Kings Fund. 25 September 2014. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  11. ↑ "Patient Access to Medical Records". Public Sphere Project. 2008. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  12. ↑ "Giving patients online records access 'cuts appointment demand by 12%'". Pulse . 3 April 2013. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  13. ↑ "'Pull the plug' on Summary Care Records, says GPC IT lead". Pulse. 14 February 2013. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  14. ↑ "Dr Amir Hannan: 'This goes to the very heart of the doctor-patient relationship'". Pulse. 28 January 2014. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
  15. ↑ "HSJ Clinical Leaders 2015". Health Service Journal. 6 July 2015. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  16. ↑ https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/948421/New_Year_Honours_List_2021.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
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