Statement of Intent

Contractual requirements came into force so GP practices should make available a statement of intent in relation to the following IT developments:

  • Summary Care Record (SCR)
  • GP to GP Record Transfers
  • Patient Online Access to Their GP Record
  • Data for commissioning and other secondary care purposes

The same contractual obligations require that we have a statement of intent regarding these developments in place and publicised.

Please find below details of the practices stance with regards to these points.

Summary Care Record (SCR)

NHS England require practices to enable successful automated uploads of any changes to patient’s summary information, at least on a daily basis, to the summary care record (SCR) or have published plans in place to achieve this by 31st of March 2015.

Having your Summary Care Record (SCR) available will help anyone treating you without your full medical record. They will have access to information about any medication you may be taking and any drugs that you have a recorded allergy or sensitivity to.

Of course, if you do not want your medical records to be available in this way then you will need to let us know so that we can update your record. You can do this via our Summary Care Opt Out form.

The practice confirms that your SCR is automatically updated on at least a daily basis to ensure that your information is as up to date as it can possibly be.

Benefits

Benefits of SCR include:

  • makes care safer
  • reduces the risk of prescribing errors
  • helps avoid delays to urgent care

For more information about the benefits and uses of SCR, visit Benefits and uses of Summary Care Records in community pharmacy - NHS Digital.

Who this service is for

This service is for authorised clinicians, health and social care workers and/or administrators, in any health or care setting based in England who need to access a patient's information to support their direct care.

SCR does not have a user interface - users must access it indirectly via user-facing applications, namely:

  • local point-of-care applications for health and care workers, such as a Patient Administration System (PAS) in a hospital
  • the National Care Records Service
Who is included

The original scope of SCR was to provide access to key information in urgent and emergency care settings. Through close consultation with the Expert Advisory Committee, NHS Digital have progressed a number of proof of concepts, to see whether it is beneficial to patient care, to allow other care settings to have access to the SCR. 

The approved care settings to view SCRs are:

  • 111
  • accident and emergency
  • acute assessment
  • ambulance
  • community care
  • GP out of hours
  • GP (for temporary or non-registered patients)
  • hospital pharmacy
  • minor injury units/walk in centres/urgent treatment centres
  • scheduled care
  • mental health
  • health and justice (custody suites)
  • hospices
  • primary care
  • community pharmacy
  • substance misuse
Who is not included

The care settings that are currently being discussed, or have an active proof of concept but are not approved for further rollout are:

  • dentistry (minor oral surgery and community dental providers)
  • domiciliary care and care homes
  • optometry
  • private GP providers
  • private hospitals and privately funded healthcare services
  • adult social care

  • sexual, contraceptive and reproductive healthcare services

Any care setting not listed is currently out of scope for SCR. However, if there is a use case for a new care setting to access the SCR, complete the online expression of interest form.

What information is available

SCR holds information for anyone who was born in England, or who has registered for NHS care in England.

Who is included

SCR holds information for:

  • anyone born in England
  • anyone else who has registered for NHS care in England

What information is held for each patient

At a minimum, the SCR contains important information about:

  • current medication
  • allergies and details of any previous reactions to medicines
  • the name, address, date of birth and NHS number of the patient

In addition, details of long-term conditions, significant medical history, or specific communications needs, is now included by default for patients with an SCR, unless they have previously told the NHS that they did not want this information to be shared. For more information, see Additional Information in the SCR.

National usage policy

An SCR should only be viewed if the health or social care worker is involved in the patient's care. This is called a 'legitimate relationship'.

The patient should be asked for their permission before their SCR is viewed.   

Where it is not possible to ask for permission to view the SCR, health and social care workers may act in the patient's best interests.

Further details can be found on View Summary Care Records (SCR) - NHS Digital.

Further guidance

Summary Care records information on NHS digital

GP to GP record transfers

NHS England requires practices to utilise the GP2GP facility for the transfer of patient records between practices, when a patient registers or de-registers (not for temporary registration).

It is very important that you are registered with a doctor at all times. If you leave your GP and register with a new GP, your medical records will be removed from your previous doctor and forwarded on to your new GP via NHS England. It can take your paper records up to two weeks to reach your new surgery.

With GP to GP record transfers your electronic record is transferred to your new practice much sooner. The practice confirms that GP to GP transfers are already active and we send and receive patient records via this system.

Patient online access to their GP record

NHS England require practices to promote and offer the facility to enable patients online access to appointments, prescriptions, allergies and adverse reactions or have published plans in place to achieve this by 31st of March 2015.

We currently offer the facility for booking and cancelling appointments and also for ordering your repeat prescriptions and viewing a summary of your medical records on-line. If you do not already have a user name and password for this system – please register your interest with our reception staff.

Data for commissioning and other secondary care purposes

It is already a requirement of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 that practices must meet the reasonable data requirements of commissioners and other health and social care organisations through appropriate and safe data sharing for secondary uses, as specified in the technical specification for care data.

At our practice we have specific arrangements in place to allow patients to “opt out” of care data which allows for the removal of data from the practice.

The practice confirm these arrangements are in place and that we undertake annual training and audits to ensure that all our data is handled correctly and safely via the Information Governance Toolkit.