Paper medical records of hospital patients in Bradford are to be replaced by an electronic system.

The move, which could go ahead as early as October, will solve the problem of where to store hundreds of thousands of paper notes and the problem of patient care being disrupted by notes going missing.

Dr Dean Johnson, director of planning and performance at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust outlined the plan to a meeting of the Trust's board of governors yesterday. He said the Trust had planned to build a new storage site for paper records but the cost was huge.

"When we realised how much it was going to cost we decided we could do something to solve two problems," he said.

"The problem of the availability of case notes and the storage of case notes."

The Trust plans to contract a company to scan all the paper records it holds into an electronic document.

It will then have to find a way to manage the system, provide staff with a way to view them and work out how staff can add to the patient's record.

"This will bring challenges and it will be a big change for how clinicians work," said Dr Johnson.

"We also have to make sure there is a contingency plan if the network goes down."

In response to questions from hospital governors he gave assurances of the security of the system and said the records would be available only to those who currently view them through a smart card and pin number system.

"No other hospital in the UK has this to the extent we are proposing," said Dr Johnson.

"We could not afford to wait for a national solution to this problem, we needed to work from a standalone position."

Chairman of the Trust, David Richardson said: "We could end up with a record storage bigger than the hospital. We do need this and it will be good for the patient."

Trust governor Professor John Young, a professor of elderly care medicine, welcomed the move but said it would be a big cultural change for those working on the front-line.

Yesterday was the deadline for companies interested in submitting a bid to operate the system. The Trust expects to agree a case in July with a view to beginning to implement the electronic system in October or November.