Electronic Patient Records – Statement of Intent

New contractual requirements came into force from 1 April 2014 requiring that 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 by September 30, 2014.

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.

Abbey Medical Practice confirm 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.

GP to GP Record Transfers (GP2GP)

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 GP2GP record transfers your electronic record is transferred to your new practice much sooner.

Abbey Medical Practice confirm that GP to GP transfers are already active and we send and receive patient records via this system, provided that the previous, or new recipient GP Practice uses a compatible IT system.

Patient Online Access to Their GP Record

NHS England requires 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 on-line and you can order your repeat prescription on-line via the Practice web site. In addition to this you can review blood results, order sicknotes and send non-urgent messages to our staff.

Once registered for the on-line booking system, you will be provided with a user name and password to access this system. Registration forms can be obtained from reception. Once you have your login you will also be able to access information online from your medical record.

Data for commissioning and other secondary care purposes

It is already a requirement of the Health and Social Care Act 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 Abbey Medical 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. Please see the Reception team for the opt out form.

Abbey Medical 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