In the clinical setting TimeDriver offers a small part of the functionality of the semantic web set out by Tim Berners Lee a few years ago in Scientific American. In the UK it could easily be used by GPs for scheduling appointments, or even a low-fi version of NHS Choose and Book. But it won't be, because of the closed nature of GP and other systems in the NHS, in which this sort of functionality is locked-in to particular systems. In theory the NHS has a great deal of leverage over systems suppliers. But as has been shown recently in relation to GP systems, in practice it does not. Linked Data and Shared Data are interesting challenges for the NHS. As Adam Bosworth said in his interview with Matthew Holt, the missing piece of the jigsaw in the NHS is the empowered, choice-making patient, who may or may not exist.
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