Increasingly, patient medical data is shared e.g. between GP surgeries, District Nursing, Primary Care Networks and Hospitals.  This allows health care professional to access the most up to date information when seeing 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.

e.g. it may be necessary to share data held in GP practices with district nurses but the local podiatry department would not need to see it to undertake their work. In this case, patients would allow the surgery to share their data, they would allow the district nurses to access it but they would not allow access by the podiatry department. In this way access to patient data is under patients' control and can be shared on a 'need to know' basis.

There is a Central NHS Computer System called the Emergency Care Summary (ECS). The Emergency Care Summary is meant to help emergency doctors and nurses help you when you contact them when the surgery is closed. It will contain information on your medications and allergies.

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

As with all 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. If you don’t want an Emergency Care Summary to be made for you, tell your GP surgery. Don’t forget that if you do have an Emergency Care Summary, you will be asked if staff can look at it every time they need to. You don’t have to agree to this.

Summary Care Records (SCR) are an electronic record of important patient information, created from GP medical records. They can be seen and used by authorised staff in other areas of the health and care system involved in the patient's direct care.

If you are registered with a GP practice in England your SCR is created automatically, unless you have opted out. 98% of practices are now using the system. For more information, please click on the link below:

 Summary Care Record Information

 Patients with online accounts such as through the NHS App and Systmone Online will be able to read new entries, including free text, in their health record.  Although the start date of this change has been delayed in order to help GP practices prepare, this change will apply to the NHS App and all other approved patient facing services apps that provide record access, for example Evergreen, Airmid, SystmOnline and Patient Access.

This will allow you to see all the information within your health record. If you are over 16 and have an online account, such as through the NHS App, NHS website, or other GP online services and apps, you will automatically be able to see all future information entered on your medical record. Some people can already access this feature, this won't change for you.

This means that you will be able to see records from your appointments, as well as test results and any letters that are saved on your records. This only applies to records from your doctor (GP), not from hospitals or other specialists, although you will be able to see any letters that hospitals or specialists send to your GP.  For most people, access will be automatic and you won't need to do anything but some access may be restricted such as 3rd Party Safeguarding information and therefore the practice may perform a clinical check to prevent any harm to patients. (Please note, if you do not already have online access to your GP record, this change will not affect you until you register for online access either with your surgery or any of the other online platforms such as NHS App.) 

We have produced a patient leaflet for your information:

Accelerated Access Patient leaflet.doc

If you would like more information regarding these changes, please click on the link below:

FAQ Patient Access

Please note the switch on date for this been delayed to allow GP practices to prepare for these changes.***

We do not provide details of your Covid Vaccinations.  You can access this information via the NHS App.  Please see the video below to access this information.  If you are unable to do this, please contact 119 for further support.