Use of data from patient records for research : a model for best practice?

Abstract

In the UK National Health Service (NHS), the registered list and the clinical records of patients are an invaluable resource for the quality assurance of clinical care in General Practice (e.g. audit) and for service development and quality initiatives. These records are also powerful instruments for the conduct of research in primary care. General practitioners are the "guardians" of these demographic and clinical data and, indeed, the use of patient data from these records for research in the past has given us many examples of excellent research which have had a direct impact on the care of our patients and the advice we give them.