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Open Monday-Friday Branch Surgeries INGLETON WRAY Telephone Enquires Tel: 015242 61202 Repeat Prescriptions Tel: 015242 63618 Surgery Closed Tel: 015242 61202 Out of Hours services are provided by Website updated |
Open letter to all our patients about the Summary Care Record 21st March, 2010 The NHS will soon be writing to you to introduce a new system that may lead to big changes in who has access to your NHS health records. It is called the NHS Summary Care Record. (Note recently the NHS decided to delay the introduction of the Summary Care Record). If you do nothing, parts of your health record will be copied from our practice computer to the national NHS computer system called the Spine. At first your recent prescriptions and our records of any serious medication side effects or allergies that you have had in the past will be copied to your Summary Care Record. Later it is likely that important illnesses, operations and test results will follow. The aim is to make the information available to whoever is looking after you anywhere in England if you are ill in the future. In an emergency it may be very helpful for a hospital doctor to know exactly what medication you are on or if you are allergic to a medication. But if you have a Summary Care Record, you will have less control over who will have access to your medical records than you do now. Although there will be systems in place to help prevent people looking at your Summary Care Record without your permission, it is not possible to make them completely reliable in an organisation as big as the NHS. For many people there will be benefits of better health care with the Summary Care Record but if you are concerned about the risk to the confidentiality of your health record, the NHS has given you two further choices. One is to have a Summary Care Record but keep it hidden from healthcare staff. This gives you the advantage of being able to see your record on an NHS website called HealthSpace. The other is to decline to have any records copied to the Summary Care Record at all. We strongly recommend that you think carefully about the decision and make the choice that is right for you. It is a fine balance and the same decision is not right for everyone. Whatever choice you make, we assure you that the care you receive from the practice and your records on our practice computer system will not be affected. You will have until at least 30th June 2010 to make up your mind about what to do. Once your Summary Care Record has been created it will be very difficult to have it deleted although it will be possible to hide it from health-care staff. If you decide that you do not want your records copied to the Summary Care Record or you would like them hidden from healthcare staff, let us know, preferably in writing, and we will add a marker to your record at the practice to stop it. There are forms for you to complete at reception at Bentham and Ingleton surgeries and for download from here. If you do want to have a Summary Care Record you need not do anything. The Record will be created automatically. To learn more before you decide, visit the NHS Summary Care Record website (www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk/about). If you are still uncertain we may be able to help. Your doctor will be happy to talk to you about it. Yours sincerely,
Drs Sullivan, McKirdy, Howlett, Astle and Harding |
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