31.07.14
Summary Care Record hits 40 million patient milestone
The NHS electronic Summary Care Record (SCR) has hit the 40 million patient mark, new figures from NHS England have revealed.
SCR is an electronic record containing information about patients including allergies, medications and adverse reactions. It is pulled from GP systems which can be viewed by health professionals involved in a patient’s care.
Launched in England as a key part of the now defunct £12.7m NHS national programme for IT, there was initial hesitancy surrounding SCR from the public and health professionals around consent and confidentiality.
But NHS England says that only 1.4% of patients have opted out of having an SCR. In fact, it is now focusing on rolling it out in A&E, NHS 111, and GP out-of-hours services.
Beverley Bryant, director of strategic systems and technology at NHS England, said: “The value of SCR is being seen in a number of care settings with viewing volumes now growing quickly on the back of the great progress in making records available.
“This in turn is driving the main objectives which are improvement in patient care and efficiencies in the NHS.”
The SCR should have been delivered to every NHS patient in England by 2010, so that clinicians involved in their treatment would have access to essential information from the outset.
In 2013 it was extended so that patients could opt to include information about end of life care, and significant conditions and interventions.
However, by the end of March 2015, GP practices will be required to provide an automated upload of their summary information to the SCR, or have published plans in place to achieve this. The new GP contract also requires GPs to give patients online access to the information held in the SCR by this date.
Sebastien Baugh, a professional adviser at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, said: “SCRs play a part in improving the quality of patient care.
“They enable the better coordination of care, with important access to patient information about allergies and medication. This helps physiotherapists when assessing their patients to build a thorough clinical picture.”
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