Patient Record

Access to Medical Records

Access to Medical Records as from 31st October 2023

All patients registered with us have a right to have access to their medical records. The Burbage Surgery have offered this service for many years. However, from the 31st October 2023 NHS England have asked that all patients with the NHS app will have automatic access. With the support and advice from the BMA (British Medical Association), The Burbage Surgery have maintained an opt in process. 

 

Our aim is to protect patients who do not want to have their medical record on their phone without asking for it first. This could be for a number of reasons such as : Domestic violence, safeguarding, coercin and other patinet vulnerabilities. 

 

From 31st October 2023, when you register at the practice you will now be given access to your medical record unless you " OPT OUT ". If you already have access to your record at the surgery nothing will change on 31st October 2023. 

Once you are registered at the practice, you can get access to your medical records via the NHS App. 

Please click here to be directed to the NHS App 

 

 

Sharing Your Medical Record

Increasingly, patient medical data is shared e.g. between GP surgeries and District Nursing, in order to give clinicians access to the most up to date information when attending patients.

The systems we operate require that any sharing of medical information is consented to by patients beforehand. Patients must consent to sharing of the data held by a health provider out to other health providers and must also consent to which of the other providers can access their data.

e.g. it may be necessary to share data held in GP practices with district nurses but the local podiatry department would not need to see it to undertake their work. In this case, patients would allow the surgery to share their data, they would allow the district nurses to access it but they would not allow access by the podiatry department. In this way access to patient data is under patients' control and can be shared on a 'need to know' basis.

Not Registered for Online Services?

two people embracing

a set of key on a desk

Cabinet of medical records

Update your Patient Record

Summary Care Record

There is a new Central NHS Computer System called the Summary Care Record (SCR). The Summary Care Record is meant to help emergency doctors and nurses help you when you contact them when the surgery is closed. Initially, it will contain just your medications and allergies.

Later on as the central NHS computer system develops, (known as the ‘Summary Care Record’ – SCR), other staff who work in the NHS will be able to access it along with information from hospitals, out of hours services, and specialists letters that may be added as well.

Your information will be extracted from practices such as ours and held on central NHS databases.   

As with all new systems there are pros and cons to think about. When you speak to an emergency doctor you might overlook something that is important and if they have access to your medical record it might avoid mistakes or problems, although even then, you should be asked to give your consent each time a member of NHS Staff wishes to access your record, unless you are medically unable to do so.

On the other hand, you may have strong views about sharing your personal information and wish to keep your information at the level of this practice. Connecting for Health (CfH), the government agency responsible for the Summary Care Record have agreed with doctors’ leaders that new patients registering with this practice should be able to decide whether or not their information is uploaded to the Central NHS Computer System.

For existing patients it is different in that it is assumed that you want your record uploaded to the Central NHS Computer System unless you actively opt out.