How to sign up for a National Care Record Service Acceptable Use Policy: pitfalls and lessons.

The National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT) – now National Health Service (NHS) Connecting forHealth –was established in 2002 to introduce modern IT into theNHS in England. The three pillars were the NCRS, Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions (ETP) and Electronic Booking (now known as Choose &Book). These functions are carried on the Spine, and access to the Spine is controlled by identifying and authenticating individuals, using a Smartcard, with assigned roles limiting the information seen. This article is about the process of issuing Smartcards, the form (RA01), terms and conditions (T&C) and NCRS AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) involved, the unexpected problems I encountered and how I tried to address them – with a lot of help from my friends and contacts.