You may have recently had a letter from your GP asking about putting your medical notes on the national centralised computer system. You need to understand what this means before committing to anything.

Currently notes are not centralised. Most GP surgeries have an electronic record which is based at the GP surgery. However there is no sharing of notes between hospitals and GP surgeries. Communication between the two is still via written letter. There is no evidence to prove that centralising notes will improve patient-care, it is a theoretical idea.

The proposed Summary Care Record (SCR) is a summary of relevant health information about you,  that is accessible online by all NHS agencies. The idea being that if you are being treated in an emergency department or out-of-hours service for example, the staff will have access to important information that could be essential.  This would include current medication, allergies and previous reactions to treatment.

Anyone working in the NHS will effectively have access to your records.  Anyone viewing your records will have their details recorded and must be directly involved in caring for you, but it is difficult to imagine how that will be policed.  Currently your health record at your GP surgery is available only to your GP and the staff members at your surgery. This will open up your record to all NHS staff with access to the system nationwide.
People would have access to their own SCR and you can see what it contains and check the accuracy. It is suggested that you would be able to correct it but this would not be done directly on the site – otherwise people could change the medical information.

 

There is genuine worry about exposure of personal health information and this certainly makes patients understandably uneasy. Computer systems are only as safe as the people operating them and we have seen the UK doesn’t have the best track record on security of information.
 
Now for the important part – You don’t need to agree to have your records uploaded nationally: the NHS is employing a system of “presumed consent” which is controversial as it assumes you wish to have the record made unless you know to opt out. The more vulnerable, poorly informed patients will not be aware to do this.  This has led to calls for the government to slow down the plans until the public are more aware of the implications.

You have to actively opt out of having the record made via your GP surgery or online http://www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk/options/optoutform.pdf

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Tags: Doctors, Hospitals, Medical Practitioners, pharmacists