No-one is considering the small-practice private doctor
Not everyone can go to the NHS, and of those who can, not everyone wants to, or has already tried the NHS without success and now finds that private practice offers the diagnosis and treatment that deals with their problem. Foreigners in particular find it hard to get proper NHS treatment. Some aren't entitled; others find it hard to get accurate diagnosis of conditions rare in Britain, yet common overseas, like malaria or bilharzia. A great number, for whatever reason, including language difficulties, simply aren't on the NHS radar, no NHS number, nada.
Now, practically, how are we small practice people to give our data to these NHS IT bods? Legally, we are on dodgy grounds. Morally, just as dodgy. We are responsible for our client data, not this over-managed behemoth within the civil service.
I can see how it is going to go: they'll want 'required' fields to be completed with data we don't possess because we don't, in our little practice, need it. Small practices have to buy their software; they have to pay techies to maintain secure servers on which to run it; they have to backup the data securely; they have to have it to hand, immediately, when the patient turns up. Some of the software is built for use by medical professionals with thousands of medicines pre-loaded into a prescription database; pre-coded diagnoses; fully-integrated consultation, prescription, diagnosis and etc databases. Others are simpler, modified CRM systems, and none of them, none, will be compatible with the NHS system.
This is an exercise designed to drive the small private doctor out of business.