The NHS in England is now using an electronic record called the Summary Care Record (SCR), which is being used to support patient care. This programme has been rolled out throughout the UK since 2010.
All the places where you receive health care keep their own medical records about you. These places can often only share information from your records by letter, fax or phone. At times, this can delay information sharing and this can impact decision making and slow down treatment. The Summary Care Record is a copy of key information held in your GP record. It provides authorised healthcare staff with faster, secure access to essential information about you – when you need unplanned care or when your GP practice is closed. The availability of Summary Care Records will improve the safety and quality of your care.
Your Summary Care Record contains important information about any medicines you are taking, any allergies you suffer from and any bad reactions to medicines that you have previously experienced. Allowing authorised healthcare staff to have access to this information will improve decision making by doctors and other healthcare professionals and has prevented mistakes being made when patients are being cared for in an emergency or when their GP practice is closed. You may be asked if you consent to the sharing of your medical information between healthcare professionals – this could be between your GP and your consultant, your GP and your district nurse etc., and of course vice versa.
Your Summary Care Record also includes your name, address, date of birth and your unique NHS Number to help identify you correctly. You may want to add other details about your care to your Summary Care Record. This will only happen if both you and your GP agree to do this.
What are my choices? You can choose to have an SCR or you can choose to opt out. If you choose to have a Summary Care Record and are registered with us, you do not need to do anything as a Summary Care Record is created for you. If you choose to opt out of having a Summary Care Record and do not want a SCR, you need to let us know by filling in and returning an opt-out form. Opt-out forms are available from reception or online: click here
Who can see my Summary Care Record? Healthcare staff who have access to your Summary Care Record:
• need to be directly involved in caring for you
• need to have an NHS Smartcard with a chip and pin passcode
• will only see the information they need to do their job and
• will have their details recorded every time they look at your record.
Healthcare staff will ask for your permission every time they need to look at your Summary Care Record.
If they cannot ask you (for example if you are unconscious or otherwise unable to communicate), healthcare staff may look at your record without asking you, because they consider that this is in your best interest. If they have to do this, this will be recorded and checked to ensure that the access was appropriate. If a healthcare professional self-claims a legitimate relationship, or selects emergency access, this will generate an alert. These alerts will be audited by each organisation’s privacy officer to make sure there was a valid reason for the record being accessed.
How does the NHS protect my confidentiality? By law, everyone working for the NHS in England (or on their behalf) must respect your confidentiality and keep all information about you secure. The NHS Care Record Guarantee for England specifies how the NHS will collect, store and allow access to your electronic records. It details your choices for how your information is stored and viewed. The NHS Care Record Guarantee is available online in the links section below.
Considerable care is taken with your records. There are individuals who are responsible for protecting your confidentiality in each place that you are treated.
See also NHS Choices website for information from the links section below:
Useful Links
Opting out of sharing your medical data for research/planning:
You are able to decide whether you want your health information to be used in research and planning. You can opt out of sharing your data for this specific purpose, but need to complete a form in order to have this detailed on your medical records (this is NOT something that the surgery can do for you, unfortunately).
You can set your own opt-out choice and read more about data sharing by visiting the links in the below section:
Useful Links
Documents