NHS will be paperless by 2015, says commissioning board

Paper records should be “eradicated” from the NHS as early as 2015, the NHS Commissioning Board’s national director for patients and information has said.

Tim Kelsey said he was “pushing” for a switchover to digital records by the end of 2015 and admitted it would be a “bold” move.

But a senior figure at the NHS Confederation said the deadline could prove “too ambitious” as some working practices could be hard to change.

Kelsey, a former Sunday Times journalist who co-founded the Dr Foster organisation that publishes consumer guides to UK health services …