Services - Your medical records

Share out share in with SystmOne

Request for Consent

We are requesting your consent to allow healthcare professionals at the Practice and other healthcare professionals who are treating you to share and have access to your medical records. This is to help ensure you receive safe, effective, and efficient care.

Importance of Your Medical Records

Your medical records play a crucial role in ensuring you receive safe, effective, and efficient care. With our computer system, it is possible for other healthcare professionals treating you (for example, the emergency doctor who might see you out of hours) to view the medical records we have made and for us to view the records they have made. We believe this is valuable and will enhance the continuity of your care, but we need your consent to proceed.

Why Your Consent is Necessary

Your consent is required for two reasons:

Sharing Out: This would mean that we make your medical records available for other healthcare professionals to view. However, they will need to obtain your consent to view these records when they are treating you. This ensures that your records are only seen by healthcare professionals directly involved in your care and with your permission.

Sharing In: This allows us to view the medical records created by other healthcare professionals you have seen, assuming you have consented for them to make their records available.

Healthcare professionals will only access information relevant to the treatment they are providing. Moreover, you can withdraw your consent to 'share out' or 'share in' at any time in the future.

We believe that giving your consent to both 'share out' and 'share in' will facilitate your receiving safe, effective, and efficient medical care. If you agree, please request the appropriate form at reception to give your consent.

Consent to Share Out and Share In

If you are willing to consent to 'Share Out and Share In' so that healthcare professionals directly involved in your care, who also use SystmOne, can access your medical records, please let us know.

Summary Care Record and Care Data

This consent process is separate from the Summary Care Record or Care Data. More information about these can be found on this website. It is assumed that you consent to these unless you specifically opt out. You can download the necessary forms to opt out from the relevant pages of this website and submit them at reception.

NHS Care Record Guarantee

For more detailed information about how your medical records are used, you can refer to the NHS Care Record Guarantee provided by the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

Care data

Information about you and the care you receive is shared in a secure system by healthcare staff to support your treatment and care.

It is important for us, the NHS, to use this information to plan and improve services for all patients. We aim to link information from all the different places where you receive care, such as your GP, hospital, and community service, to provide a complete picture. This enables us to compare the care you receive in one area to that in another, helping us to identify what works best.

Information such as your postcode and NHS number, but not your name, will be used to link your records in a secure system, ensuring your identity is protected. Information that does not reveal your identity can then be used by others, such as researchers and those planning health services, to ensure we provide the best possible care for everyone.

Your Choices

You have a choice. If you are happy for your information to be used in this way, you do not need to do anything. If you have any concerns or wish to opt-out, please speak to practice staff or download the opt-out form below, complete it, and return it to the practice.

It is important to us that you are aware this is happening and understand the choices you have.

Click here for information on how information about you helps us provide you with better care.

Click here to opt out.

Summary care record

There is a central NHS computer system called the Summary Care Record (SCR). The Summary Care Record is designed to assist emergency doctors and nurses when you need help outside of surgery hours. Initially, it will contain just your medications and allergies.

As the central NHS computer system evolves, it will be accessible to other NHS staff, including information from hospitals, out-of-hours services, and specialists' letters that may be added.

Your information will be extracted from practices like ours and stored on central NHS databases.

As with all new systems, there are pros and cons to consider. When you speak to an emergency doctor, you might overlook something important. Having access to your medical record could prevent mistakes or problems.

However, 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 prefer to keep your information within this practice. NHS Digital, the government agency responsible for the Summary Care Record, has agreed with doctors’ leaders that new patients registering with this practice will have the choice to decide whether their information is uploaded to the central NHS computer system. For existing patients, it is assumed that you want your record uploaded unless you actively opt out

For further information visit the NHS Digital website here.

If you choose to opt-out of the scheme then you will need to complete a form and bring it along to the surgery.

About your medical records

Share out share in with SystmOne

Care data

Summary care record