Summary Care Records will prove invaluable for patients, confirms Health Minister

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NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale (HMR) have announced that reviews commissioned by the Health Minister Simon Burns have concluded that a Summary Care Record (SCR) containing core patient information will prove valuable for patients needing emergency care.

The Summary Care Record (SCR) will only contain a patient’s demographic details, medications, allergies and adverse reactions. This is the key medical information that may make all the difference to ensuring safe treatment when a patient needs emergency or unplanned care.

A review, led by Professor Sir Bruce Keogh (NHS Medical Director), involving leading patient representatives and clinicians, including a local GP, agreed that when patients require treatment in an emergency or out of hours, clinicians should have access to the essential information they need to support safe treatment.

There are many safeguards in place which will continue to protect patients. Just some of these include the requirement to request permission to view a patient’s record at the point of care and strict audit controls over who can access records.

NHS Medical Director, Sir Bruce Keogh, said: “In an advanced national health care system it is reasonable for citizens to expect that when they arrive in Accident & Emergency or require treatment out of hours that clinicians treating them have access to enough basic medical information to prevent anyone making wrong or even dangerous decisions”.

Health Minister, Simon Burns, echoed these sentiments in saying: “I am pleased that a consensus has emerged about the importance of the SCR in supporting safe patient care, as long as the core information contained in it is restricted to medication, allergies and adverse reactions. Coupled with improvements to communication with patients which reinforce their right to opt out, we believe this draws a line under the controversies that the SCR has generated up to now. We see this review as having taken a significant step towards the goal of patients owning their records and using them to share decision- making with healthcare professionals.”

The British Medical Association, who have been critical about the development of Summary Care Records, have also come out to support the outcome of the review. A BMA spokesperson said: "We welcome the progress that has been made towards an emergency electronic record that supports urgent care, yet recognises many of the understandable concerns of patients and clinicians. Much will depend on the way the amended scheme is put into practice, and the BMA looks forward to continuing our work with government on its implementation. It is essential that patients have genuine control over who has access to their records, and when changes are made to them."

Locally, Summary Care Records have been a huge success, with almost 140,000 records already uploaded in Bury.

Bury GP, Dr Rob Jeeves, who is the clinical advisor for the SCR project across NHS Bury, HMR and Oldham said: "Many of our patients in Bury have benefited from SCRs over the last couple of years. Indeed, our patients are often surprised that such vital information is not readily available in other areas. Our local clinicians use SCR to assist and complement the normal history taking process, and have been pleased that SCR has helped to improve the safety and quality of their patient care. We are pleased that national tensions are being addressed so that we can focus our energy on developing SCR to improve care for our patients."

Summary Care Records can be viewed at many sites including Bury & Rochdale Doctors on Call (BARDOC) and Fairfield General Hospital’s A&E Department. A recent survey undertaken with out of hours GPs in Bury and Medway were asked a number of questions about Summary Care Records. 65% of the GPs believed that Summary Care Records had increased safety in treating patients.

NHS HMR is looking forward to offering the benefits of Summary Care Records to patients across the borough by working with GPs in rolling out the programme locally.