It looks like the NHS hasn’t given up on providing patients with access to their records, after all. This week Connecting for health announces they’re hoping to do more work on their patient access website Healthspace.

One of the reasons HealthSpace was shelved back in June was the low take-up of patients who chose to access their record in the pilot areas. But Dr Braunold, directional head of HealthSpace, argues:

“Very few patients keep going back if all you can do is just look at your record. It’s like having an online bank account and not being able to do anything with it.”

She is determined to make patient access a central plank of the NHS IT project and hopes patients will be able to order a prescription, make an appointment and view additional information about an illness.

And her faith in the value of a centralised NHS system seems to be mirrored by a survey by E-Health Insider which is being published at just the same time. It shows that 90% of their readers would rather their records were accessible through HealthSpace than through companies like Google or Microsoft, as the Tories have proposed.

The green light has not yet been given, however, and this latest instalment of the HealthSpace drama still leaves lots of questions begging. The future does at least look a little brighter for giving patients the access and information they need to take more control of their own healthcare.