In the NHS we are forever asked to send documents via email, the lack of modern digitalisation of many working processes means that this is unavoidable. All the digital governance training in the world won’t stop the workforce finding an ‘appropriate’ easier route…

One key area Pyrexia was created to improve was the governance around healthcare staff’s personal and health data. At the moment the majority of organisations lack any digital workflow platform, or have a platform that is too difficult to use, or broken! Inevitably you are then asked to email all your documents and lose any knowledge of how that data is stored or accounted for.

On applying to a recent job they had a digital workflow platform but I was told off for uploading my documents when prompted during the online process (I had missed small message under the upload area that said it wasn’t working)... in the end I just had to e-mail PDFs.

Chances are that organisations up and down the country are failing to implement governance appropriately over staff documents, are they deleted from inboxes? Where are they stored? Are they stored on shared drives? Are they printed? After seven years of working in the NHS I can do quick estimate that my passport is in eleven personal inboxes and who-knows how many shared drives.

What should be done?

Individuals should have control of their personal data, and this should be balanced with the statutory requirements of organisations. The Pyrexia Passport is a digital staff passport that lets individuals upload their files and share them easily with HR teams - giving specific access for specific time periods. Every time your record summary is viewed this is recorded. Every time a document is viewed this is recorded. Every request for access has to be personally approved. All existing access can be cancelled at any time (accounting for statutory requirements).

Why is this better?

Individuals have confidence that their data is being appropriately handled, and Pyrexia makes it much quicker to share records quickly with organisations. The organisations can quickly find the information they need, do not need to spend time chasing individuals for their documentation, and can have their compliance monitoring automated.