Darren Ransley
Managing Director UK & Ireland
Few topics in healthcare IT today are as important, or as pressing, as the Single Patient Record. The idea that every patient should have one joined-up summary of their health, accessible at the point of care, wherever they are in the system, is not new. But the urgency is growing.
A Single Patient Record is no longer just a vision of clinical efficiency or patient safety, it is a prerequisite for delivering the kind of continuous, person-centred care we all want to see across the NHS. It is how we move from reactive, fragmented treatment to proactive, preventative care that truly supports every individual.
The debate in the UK is intensifying. The NHS England market engagement process has reignited the necessary conversations about the technical possibilities of SPRs, as well as those around governance, trust, and consent. Public perception is striking, too, as most people already believe an SPR exists. We owe it to them to make it a reality, and to do it with openness, clarity, and accountability. This is an opportunity for us all, we can’t afford to keep care records siloed, patients and professionals expect and deserve better.
At Better, we are not starting from scratch. We are already delivering SPRs across Europe: from the unified health record in Greece and Malta, to regional data-sharing platforms in Catalonia and Wales, to the national backbone in Slovenia. Our open data platform, based on openEHR and FHIR standards, separates data from applications, enabling long-term data reuse, removing silos and giving health systems the freedom to evolve. This foundation makes an SPR both possible and sustainable, and shows that it can be done with the right approach.
In a week, at this year’s Better Conference, we will be talking openly about what we have learned, and what the UK can learn from others. As we bring together international experts and NHS voices, we will explore how we can build a future-ready architecture for shared records. I believe the path to an SPR in the UK is not just possible, it is happening. And we are proud to be a part of making that future real.
