I sometimes believe that we put too much faith in technology. The story goes that in the 1960's the Americans spent millions trying develop a pen that would write in space, supposedly the Russians came up with the answer for next to nothing....it was called a pencil. The story is most likely just that, a story but it does have a point. Why do we need access to this information? As part of an ambulance crew I can see that being able to see what has changed with the patient is useful. An ECG may look abnormal to us but might be perfectly normal for that patient. I would however suggest that, if we are going to spend money we should encourage people to keep their own information (in a similar way to the tubes handed out by the Lions Club). It would cost a fraction of the price of a centralised system and have few of dangers. Who knows...we might even do something really radical, we might remind people that 999 is not a substitute for a taxi home, taking your own car to hospital or visiting your GP the next day. Sorry...wandering into the realms of science fiction there.