Increasingly, patient medical data is shared e.g. between GP surgeries and District Nursing, in order to give clinicians access to the most up to date information when attending patients.

The systems we operate require that any sharing of medical information is consented to by patients beforehand. Patients must consent to sharing of the data held by a health provider out to other health providers and must also consent to which of the other providers can access their data.  For example, it may be necessary to share data held in GP practices with district nurses but the local podiatry department would not need to see this information to be able to undertake their work. In this case, patients would allow the surgery to share their data with the district nurses but not the podiatry department. In this way access to patient data is under patients' control and can be shared on a 'need to know' basis.

Each time you use an NHS or social care service they record information about your health, care and treatment. These records are normally held electronically.

Health and care services share this information with each other to provide you with care and treatment. Data from your records (which you cannot be identified from) may also be shared with other health and care services or approved organisations to help plan and improve services or develop new medicines or treatments.

NHS and social care services take respecting your privacy and keeping your information and data safe and secure very seriously. Strict rules and processes are followed to protect your information and data, which is shared using secure IT systems which follow industry security standards and are kept-up-to date against the latest cybersecurity threats.

NHS and social care services have a legal basis to share information from your health and care records for these purposes, but you have the right to object to your information being shared.

You can see some examples of how health and care services share information, and how it is kept safe and secure in these animations:

• Sharing information for your care and treatment
  
  
• How sharing your data helps keep people well
  
  
• How sharing your data improves care for everyone
  
  
• Keeping your information safe and secure

For more information on how NHS and social care services share information from your health and care records visit the ‘sharing your information’ web pages.

There is a new Central NHS Computer System called the Summary Care Record (SCR). The Summary Care Record is meant to help emergency doctors and nurses help you when you contact them when the surgery is closed. Initially, it will contain just your medications and allergies.

Later on as the central NHS computer system develops, (known as the ‘Summary Care Record’ – SCR), other staff who work in the NHS will be able to access it along with information from hospitals, out of hours services, and specialists letters that may be added as well.

Your information will be extracted from practices such as ours and held on central NHS databases.   

As with all new systems there are pros and cons to think about. When you speak to an emergency doctor you might overlook something that is important and if they have access to your medical record it might avoid mistakes or problems, although even then, you should be asked to give your consent each time a member of NHS Staff wishes to access your record, unless you are medically unable to do so.

On the other hand, you may have strong views about sharing your personal information and wish to keep your information at the level of this practice. Connecting for Health (CfH), the government agency responsible for the Summary Care Record have agreed with doctors’ leaders that new patients registering with this practice should be able to decide whether or not their information is uploaded to the Central NHS Computer System.

For existing patients it is different in that it is assumed that you want your record uploaded to the Central NHS Computer System unless you actively opt out.

Click here to go to the NHS website and find your NHS number. This service can be used if you live in England.

You will be asked to provide your name, date of birth and postcode. If you're using this service for someone else, enter their details.

From 1st November 2022 all patients over the age of 16 years will be granted the ability to view their full medical record via the NHS App. 

Patients will only be able to view information entered after this date.  However, if they already have full online access before 1st November 2022 they will be able to see previous information entered, or if they wish to make a request to view historical information this can be done by contacting reception.

If you have changed any of your details please either click the link above and use your SystmOnline account to inform us or send us an administrative eConsult with all your new details.