Summary Care Records
NHS Bury is taking part in an initiative called the NHS Summary Care Record.
This service is part of the National Programme for Information Technology, NHS Care Record Service. The first step towards creating a Care Records Service is known as a Summary Care Record (SCR).
If you decide to have a Summary Care Record it will contain important information about any medicines you are taking, allergies you suffer from and any bad reactions to medicines that you have had.
Giving healthcare staff access to this information can prevent mistakes being made when caring for you in an emergency or when your GP practice is closed.
You may want to add other details about your care to your Summary Care Record. This will only happen if you ask for the information to be included. You should discuss your wishes with your GP.
If you have a Summary Care Record, NHS staff will ask you if they can look at it every time they need to. In a rare situation where you are unable to give your permission to NHS staff to view your SCR (for example, if you were unconscious) then a clinician can still access your SCR by acting in your best interests. Tighter security controls are used to monitor accesses made to records under these circumstances.
If you are registered with a participating GP practice and have not opted out, you will have a SCR. If you are the parent or guardian of a child under 16 then you should also make this information available to them if you feel they are old enough to understand.
How will having a Summary Care Record benefit me?
Before the NHS Summary Care Record initiative, records were kept in all the different places where you receive care. These organisations can usually only share information from your records by letter, email, fax or phone. At times, this can slow down your treatment. The SCR is a quicker way to get important information to the NHS staff treating you, including in an emergency and when you use out-of-hours services when your GP practice is closed.
By using your Summary Care Record, healthcare staff will be able to share important information such as allergies and medications when necessary, giving a more complete and accurate picture of your health history.
In Bury, healthcare staff in Bury and Rochdale Doctors on Call (BARDOC), Fairfield A&E and the Prestwich and Bury Walk-in Centres, along with other sites, will have quick access to your records so they can provide safer and more effective care.
You can look at your SCR using a secure website called HealthSpace www.healthspace.nhs.uk. To keep it as secure as possible you will need to create a HealthSpace Advanced Account to view your SCR by clicking on the link and following the on-screen instructions.
You will be able to make sure it is accurate and, in time, add things to it (for example, if you prefer us to contact you in a certain way or if you use a wheelchair and need special access).
Access to your Summary Care Record will only be available to authorised NHS staff if they are involved in your treatment and there are strict security measures in place to ensure this.