Dr Glyn Hayes was not critical of the Conservative plan to allow patients to store their records with companies such as Google or Microsoft, but neither was he very enthusiastic, reports The Guardian.
"The concept of personally-held records has some merit, in terms of getting patient involvement, but there's a huge amount of work to do to see how that fits in with the realities of medical care. It cannot be the only record," he said.
He added that the health service would continue to need its own records beyond those run by the patient, as much healthcare work goes on when the patient is not present. "That means that there has to be some sort of interface between the personally held record and the health service systems, which means that these personally held records have got to meet all sorts of standards for interoperability, functionality and privacy.
"So what the report basically says is, it outlines some of these issues, and then it says this needs to be looked into. It's not something that you can really say one way or the other at this point in time," Dr Hayes added.
The 186 page report contains only one paragraph on Google Health, the search engine giant's personal health record service, partly because "Google did not respond to the review group's request for evidence". Google recently said it has no immediate plans to offer such a service in Britain.
Party leader David Cameron praised the idea of storing health records with firms such as Google or Microsoft in a speech in April, as an alternative to centralised state control. He said this could save money and help people become more responsible for their own health.
