Summary Care Records
Your Medical Records – Your Decision
The NHS has a computer system called the Summary Care Record (SCR). The Summary Care Record is designed to help emergency doctors and nurses when you contact them, if the surgery is closed. Initially, it will contain just your medications, adverse reactions and allergies. However, later on as their computer system (known as the “NHS Spine”) develops, many other people who work in the NHS will be able to access your records with your permission: e.g. information from hospitals, blood tests, x-rays and specialists’ letters. The information will be sent from practices such as ours and held on NHS databases. As with all new systems there will be pros and cons; 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. On the other hand, there is not much evidence that these sorts of systems dramatically improve care. Having all your personal medical information in one place can increase the risk of others accessing it without permission (known as `hacking`) or information being lost or misplaced.
The purpose of this information is not about whether you should have your data on the Summary Care Record or not. It is about your right to control what’s happening to your care records. Connecting for health, the government agency responsible for the Summary Care Records have agreed with doctors` leaders that patients registering with this practice should have absolute control over whether or not their records are available on the Summary Care Record. However, for patients already registered with a practice it is assumed you want a Summary Care Record.
This practice believes everyone should have the same control. The British Medical Association also believes patients medical records should not be uploaded without explicit patient/carer consent.
What are my options?
- I DO want to have Summary Care Records (SCRs). I am happy for my SCRs to be sent to it
- I DO NOT want a Summary Care Record. I am not happy for my records to be sent to it.
What happens next?
- If you choose option 1, We will set our system to create a SCR for you.
- If you choose option 2. We will set our system to NOT create a SCR for you.
Please download the form to indicate which option you would like us to create for you. Return the completed form to the surgery