Summary Care Records

This month the Wyre Senior Forum has been finding out about the patient Summary Care Records being introduced in Wyre.
The Summary Care Record (SCR) contains basic essential health information concerning allergies, adverse reaction to medications and current and repeat prescriptions and all residents of Wyre should have received a leaflet describing the scheme.
It is being taken initially from your GP records and will be available for health care staff to use while treating you anywhere in England.
This will guarantee health care staff will have important up to date health information about you when they are treating you in an emergency or away from home. This means treatment will be safer, as health care staff will know if they need to avoid certain medications. Patients don’t need to worry if they don’t have details of medications with them as health care staff can check the Summary Care Record.
Additional information can be added over time to include recent medical history, significant test results, care plans and end of life care preferences.
Steps have been taken to ensure the safety and security of the information contained in the record.
Staff using it must have a legitimate relationship to the patient and access is only through a smartcard and password , similar to the chip and pin system we use while shopping. Staff will only be able to see the information they need for their job, the patient must be asked for permission to view the information and a record will be kept of who has accessed the SCR
Patients can ask to see a copy of the record at their GP practice and have full control over any additional information to be added to it.
The letter we received allowed us to opt out of the scheme, if we choose, but no action on our part means that a SCR is automatically produced. In reality only a tiny minority(0.5%) are opting out.
While the North Lancs PCT are one of many trusts introducing the scheme the records themselves are produced within individual GP surgeries and so the pace of their introduction will be limited by the pace at which each surgery produces the summary records.
Early experience points to the benefits of the scheme:
A GP for out of hours services in Bury said:“We often get patients who phone up who have run out of their ‘white tablets but the summary care record can give us the exact details of the drugs we need to prescribe. It is without doubt a wonderful development that is improving patient care significantly in Bury.”
An Accident and Emergency Consultant from Royal Lancashire Hospital: “When I see people in the emergency department I usually have little or no background information about them, except what they can tell me. Depending on their condition, this is often inaccurate, incomplete or impossible for the patient to give. Being able to see an easily accessible, up to date GP summary patient record will help me make occasionally critical decisions about their care and give the patient more confidence that my decisions are based on reliable, up to date information.“
If you have any questions about the records there is a help line you can call on 0845 603 8510 or just ask at your GPs to see a copy of your Summary Care Record.