Patients will be able to use their smartphones to safely access their GP records within the next 12 months, it has been announced.

Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt has said that his ambition was to get 15% of NHS patients routinely reading and adding to their online medical records using smartphones apps.

In outlining his vision for future use of technology, he said the NHS should make better use of technology in order to empower patients into managing their own healthcare needs.

Mr Hunt who was speaking at the NHS Innovation Expo in Manchester said that the world of healthcare seemed to be "at the back of the queue" but the initiative would help to put patients first.

He told the conference that there had been more changes in the way people shop and bank - rather than the way patients are able to access and interact with their healthcare records.

He said: "I believe that innovation is going to be absolutely central to the future of the NHS.

"For so many aspects of our lives we still barely scratch the surface when it comes to healthcare which is curious because healthcare matters more to us than any of those things."

In the UK, 84% of the population use the internet, 59% use a smartphone but only 2% have had any digital interaction with the NHS.

He said data would remain safe and added that there would be "intelligent transparency" with consequences in the NHS.

He added: "137 people die or are seriously harmed every year because of medication errors, many of those could be avoided if a doctor or nurse had access to electronic healthcare records."

He added that having electronic information was "absolutely critical" in going forward before "putting it into the hands of patients".

He said in March the UK would become the first country in the world to publish the quality performance for different patient groups across every Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and wanted the NHS to become the largest learning organisation in the world.

By 2016 he said that all patients should be able to access their own electronic GP record online in full, seeing not just a summary of their allergies and medication, but blood test results, appointment records and medical histories and in a "read and write" format.

By 2018 this record would include information from all their health and care interactions.

During his speech, Mr Hunt said: "Within the next three years, a quarter of all smartphone users will be electronically accessing their NHS services, records, booking their appointments online, be using a great suite of health apps that now exist to access our own medical information."

He said that it would not only be "a convenience factor" but also an "efficiency factor".

"The evidence all over the world is when a patient starts accessing their medical record they then start to think about their healthcare in a different way.

"When you have shared access to a medical record it becomes a shared endeavour and the world's most powerful patients become the world's most healthiest patients."