In line with recent COVID-19 guidance, opportunities to share records in order to improve quality of care are developing rapidly. There are now three main areas in which record sharing may occur. All access is fully auditable.

Summary Care Records (national scheme). This includes a live list of medication, allergies and adverse reactions. You can also view exactly what your summary care medical record consists of online. Other than yourself, only NHS staff involved in your care (e.g. paramedic or pharmacist) with an accredited smart card can view your summary care record. The summary care record is the most widely available record throughout the NHS.

As of Wednesday 29th April additional information to the summary care records (e.g. basic coded (non-sensitive) medical history) will be uploaded nationally to improve clinical care across NHS organisations during COVID-19 pandemic without requiring explicit consent on your part until end of COVD-19 pandemic. If there is specific information you want included (e.g. treatment preferences) that may not usually be recorded you can ask us to include it. Any previous consent preference to not share records will be honoured.

If you wish to opt out of the enhanced Summary Care Record you can doing so through using the Record Sharing Consent form. Please note that opting out may also affect other enhanced data sharing processes. You can also use the form to confirm your explicit sharing preference beyond the end of the pandemic.

For opting out of the entire summary care (including medication and allergies) you can complete the Summary Care Record Opt Out form in addition. This is not recommended as no information at all will be made available to emergency services.

Local Shared Care Records (within Devon via the Medical Interoperability Gateway). This is a more detailed live medical record and is therefore subject to a dual layer of consent. You can opt out as above from Local Shared Records in all circumstances by informing Reception or e-mailing us the opt out form. However you do not need to opt out in order to still have control over each time the shared record is accessed. Prior to accessing it, the healthcare worker (e.g. out of hours GP) will seek your explicit consent and once granted will be able to view a snapshot of your medical record that cannot be modified, saved or deleted. Information marked as sensitive will not be shared and free text is not shared, only read coded clinical data.

Enhanced Record Sharing via GP Connect and SystmOne

This is higher level up to full clinical record, more useful level of detail that is can be made available to either other NHS organisations that use SystmOne (e.g. District Nurses, COVID-19 assessment hubs, MIU, Acute GP service or other GPs that you may be seeing temporarily that operate a different computer system). Sensitive codes or text or details that have been marked as ‘private’ will not be shared and notes marked as safeguarding relevant can only be viewed by those with safeguarding rights. All users need to have operational NHS Smart Cards and record access is fully auditable.

If an express dissent to share is not already registered, enhanced sharing will be made available to other NHS organisations that may care for you from Wednesday 29th April up until end of the pandemic as per NHS England guidance. There is still however an obligation for them to obtain express permission to view your GP records where practical to do so.

If you wish to confirm your preference for enhanced record sharing beyond the end of the pandemic, please download and complete the Record Sharing Consent form.

Please click on the above links to find out detailed information on both areas. Further information on how the legal framework for record sharing has evolved can be found on our GDPR page.