UK medical records head for the clouds

August 13, 2009:A plan to allow UK citizens to access their health records in hosted cloud services such as Google Health is being promoted by the opposition Conservative Party.

The Telegraph reports that the party is considering a plan that would allow patients to access their own medical records via the Internet and add their own notes and questions for doctors and consultants.

It expects a new policy along these lines will be at loggerheads with a current £12 billion plan being developed for the National health Service to manage patient records.

According to the report, Conservative politicians belive that hosted "off the shelf" systems from Google and Microsoft could be delivered at "little or no cost to the taxpayer".