Scottish NHS seeks digital records services

It wants to set up a framework contract for a health records archive service that will use scanned images of health records in place of paper documents. A notice the Official Journal of the European Union on 20 September 2010 says the organisations wants to develop a process whereby paper case notes will be deposited into off-site storage and then digitally scanned. The scanned records can then be delivered as when case notes are recalled. "The successful service provider will be expected to provide a secure location for the storage and management of the archived paper case notes," says the advertisement. "When digitised format is requested, the successful service provider will ensure the paper case note(s) is scanned and that the digital output is made available to the health records service via a secure NHS network connection." The supplier will also be expected to destroy paper case notes, on the authorisation of the NHS health records services. Several Scottish NHS organisations could use the framework, the value of which is expected to be between £10m and £30m.