NHS England is using an electronic record called the Summary Care Record to support patient care. All the settings where you receive healthcare keep their own medical records about you. You can opt out of the Summary Care Record at any time.

These places can often only share information from your records by letter, fax, telephone or email. At times, this can delay information sharing and this can affect decision making about your care and potentially slow down treatment.

About Your Summary Care Record (SCR)

Your Summary Care Record contains important information about:

• Any medicines you are taking
• Any allergies you suffer from
• Any bad reactions to medicines you have previously experienced
• Important past medical history

Allowing authorised healthcare staff to have access to this information will improve decision making by doctors and other healthcare professionals. This has prevented mistakes being made when patients are being cared for in an emergency or when their GP practice is closed.

Your SCR also includes your name, address, date of birth and your NHS number to help identify you correctly.

You may wish to add other details about your care to your Summary Care Record. This will only happen if both you and your GP agree to do this.

Healthcare staff will only have access to this information so that they can provide safer care, whenever or wherever your need it, anywhere in England.

Who Can See My SCR?

Healthcare staff who have access to your Summary Care Record:

• Need to be directly involved in caring for you
  Need to have an NHS smartcard with the correct permissions, chip and passcode
• Will only see the information they need to do their job
• Will have their details recorded every time they look at your record

What Are My Choices?

If they have to do this, this decision will be recorded and checked to ensure that the access was appropriate.

Healthcare staff will ask for your permission every time they need to look at your SCR. If they cannot ask you, if you are unconscious or otherwise unable to communicate, healthcare staff may look at your record without asking as they may consider this to be in your best interests.

Contact the staff at East Norwich Medical Partnership or contact the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) on 0300 303 5678

Opting Out

If you believe your child should opt out of having a SCR, we recommend that you discuss this with your GP. This will allow your child’s GP to highlight the consequences of opting out prior to finalising your decision.

If you are the parent or guardian of a child under the age of 16, you should make this information available to them and support the child to come to a decision as to whether to have a SCR or not.

For more information, please ask reception.

If you choose to opt out of having a SCR, you will need to complete our online form. The opt out form is also available as part of the new patient registration process. Your records will then be coded so that a SCR is not created. You can change your mind at any time.

If you are registered with a GP, a SCR will be automatically created for you.

Enhanced Summary Care Record

Additional information can be added to your SCR by the practice and is a summary of information about your medical history.

By default, your GP records are not shared with any other NHS organisation. In order for your Enhanced Summary Care Record to be available to providers such as hospitals, A&E departments, out of hours services, NHS 111 and the ambulance service, you will need to fill out a consent form.

An Enhanced Summary Care Record can include the following:

• Your long term health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, heart problems or rare medical conditions
• Your relevant medical history – clinical procedures that you have had, why you need a particular medicine, the care you are currently receiving and clinical advice to support your future care
• Your healthcare needs and personal preferences – you may have particular communication needs, a long term condition that needs to be managed in a particular way, or you may have made legal decisions or have preferences about your care that you would like to be known
• Immunisations – details of previous vaccinations, such as tetanus and routine childhood jabs

Please note that specific sensitive information such as fertility treatments, sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy termination or gender reassignment will not be included unless you specifically ask for any of these to be included.

How Will the Additional Information Help Me?

Essential details about your healthcare can be very difficult to remember, particularly when you are unwell. Having additional information in your Enhanced Summary Care Records means that when you need healthcare this information will be available to the clinician providing treatment for you, no matter which NHS organisation they work for.

There are already clear benefits for your care from having medication, allergy and adverse reactions information available through your regular Summary Care Record. This can further increase the quality of your care. Additional information can also assist you if you need some help to communicate your complex care needs.

Contact the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) on 0300 303 5678.