UK NHS Blockchain Platform for up to 30 million Patients launches with Guardtime

Software security company, Guardtime has launched a UK NHS blockchain platform, offering 30 million British patients instant access to their primary care information using a smartphone.

Developed in partnership with Instant Access Medical and Healthcare Gateway, the platform entitled MyPCR, interfaces with all three major UK NHS GP platforms.  Guardtime state that the blockchain technology programme is:

“The world’s first comprehensive blockchain-supported personal care record platform.”

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is the world’s largest publicly funded health service, and has one of the most comprehensive health datasets in existence.

Utilising Healthcare Gateway’s ‘Medical Interoperability Gateway’ (MIG), the NHS blockchain platform, which is now live, will relay feedback of a patients progress to their GP securely and privately.

In an announcement on its website, the Amsterdam-based company, Guardtime stated:

“The platform is designed to deliver immutable proof of health data provenance and integrity, GDPR patient data rights management and automated verification of medication adherence,”

The MyPCR system, has also been designed to enable National Institute for Health and Care Excellence personnel to work with patients to develop care pathways.

CEO of Instant Access Medical, Dr. Stan Shepherd said “Personal Care Pathways are vital to encouraging self-care and to improving the long-term health of patients”, he added:

“Guardtime’s KSI Blockchain is a fundamental component to delivering this service, providing end to end security of records in transit, guaranteeing immutable integrity for every patient record and ensuring GDPR compliance for patient consent.”

According to a report published by the York Health Economics Consortium, University of York, and The School of Pharmacy, University of London, medical non-adherence results in 50 percent of treatment failures, and 125,000 deaths annually.

The NHS blockchain platform, MyPCR will be primarily focusing on their adherence to medication, with continuous monitoring and verification in this area.  Guardtime‘s website states:

“The MyPCR platform will help improve medication adherence with potential savings of at least 800M GBP in the UK”

There are a number of companies working to bring blockchain technology into the NHS in a variety of areas, with many test case pilots being developed to revolutionising patient care and treatment.

As per a previous BCTech report, Google’s DeepMind have been working with the NHS since 2015, and have confirmed they are developing tools using blockchain and AI.  Another project working with patient records is Medicalchain, a startup created with Hyperledger Fabric.