Huge news for electronic patient records today as the Department of Health announces a halt to the rollout of the Summary Care Record database. The database, which will share key medical details with doctors and nurses across the UK, has been heavily criticised by both medical groups and civil rights campaigners who argue that the patients have not been given sufficcient information and that opting out of the database has been made too laborious.

The fate of the SCR must be now very much in doubt, as the LibDems and the Tories seem likely to cancel if they win the election while, even under the current government the NHS IT programme has been scaled back.