for the patients of The Roseland Surgeries
Forthcoming Bank Holidays:
Monday 27th August – Surgery CLOSED
Pharmacies open on the bank holiday:
Boots, Pydar Street, Truro (all day)
Tesco Pharmacy, Truro (all day)
Asda Pharmacy, St Austell (all day)
Improving Access to General Practice:
Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group, along with other CCGs around the country, has been tasked with providing more access to doctors outside of the normal core hours. These currently are 8 am to 6.30 pm Monday to Friday. Kernow Health Community Interest Company is putting together a service for the Mid Cornwall Locality (of which we are members) aiming to go live from October this year to provide more routine appointments on weekdays from 6.30 pm to 8 pm and Saturday mornings 9 am to 1 pm. These consultations may have to take place at the Out of Hours service in St Austell, but the location is yet to be confirmed.
All practices will have access electronically to a remote appointments system that will allow receptionists at any surgery to book their own patients into one of these slots. Only the clinician seeing the patients and the receptionist clerking in patients as they arrive at the consulting rooms will see all the names, so it is just the same as booking an appointment here.
Accessing your medical record as part of the consultation is the next ‘IT’ problem as sharing of medical data between clinical systems can be difficult and must only be done with consent. It is vital that patients understand what data is being shared, how it is shared, and most importantly, who has access to it.
Previously, some patients did not agree to the sharing of data under a Care.Data programme rolled out by the Dept of Health at that time. Dissents received at that time by the practice were recorded in medical records and this has ‘locked down’ any information from being shared.
Nowadays we have a Summary Care Record (SCR) for every patient. This basic electronic record contains your demographic data (name, address, date of birth, NHS number) together with your medications and any allergies. Again, you will previously have been asked if you want to exercise your right to formally ‘opt out’ of sharing your data using this SCR. If you did nothing, then the surgery has recorded you as having ‘implied consent to share’. This is the formal language required by the system.
There is also an enriched SCR – and with your specific (explicit) consent, we can make other information available to clinicians outside of the practice (for example, those in hospital, emergency care etc.) The enriched SCR would include a problem history (e.g. diabetes, high blood pressure, dementia). Our more vulnerable, frail patients have been asked directly whether they wanted to have an enriched SCR to help the clinicians who might have to treat them should an emergency situation arise.
Some patients have previously worried about sharing the Summary Care Record and so withheld their consent. When the SCR was first publicised, there was a worry that anyone could access your full medical records, randomly and without your knowledge. This is not true. Records are held in the strictest confidence and access is only available under certain criteria and with ‘smartcard’ access via a PIN code, known only to the user. Every time any medical record is accessed by anyone – whether that is for a receptionist booking an appointment, a dispenser handing out medication or a GP recording medical information – this is recorded and can be checked.
There is another level of security as access to your records is restricted to certain members of staff. The levels are on a need-to-know basis; for example, a receptionist booking you in at an appointment would only be able to see your demographic detail – not your medical data. However, the doctor seeing you, could see your basic or enriched summary care record, as long as you had previously consented. At any consultation, the GP should ask you for your permission to access your summary care record – and this is recorded at that time on the medical notes.
However, if you had refused the sharing of data, that GP could not see your SCR and this might have an impact on that particular consultation. It might mean that the GP could not prescribe for you, as they would not have access to your medication history and would want to avoid any conflict between drugs you are taking. It is critical that any clinician in any organisation seeing patients must do so safely and to support the decision making during that consultation, they will rely on medical information from your own GP. It is absolutely your right to withhold your data. However, it is important before you do that, to understand what that means in practice. By restricting access to your records you are potentially limiting the range of treatment that might be available.
Patients are able to change their minds with regard to sharing of data, either to remove consent to share, or to consent having previously dissented.
If you are unsure of the sharing profile on your medical record, or want to change your mind, please would you complete the slip at the end of this newsletter and hand it to reception? We will then ensure that your wishes are updated ahead of this new service going live.
I CONSENT/DO NOT CONSENT* for my medical record to be shared as a Summary Care Record (*please circle as appropriate)
Name: ……………………………………………
Date of Birth …………………………………….
Signed ……………………………………………
Dated ……………………………………………..
There is lots of information available for patients about the sharing of data, summary care records etc. If you have internet access, please see:
https://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/records/healthrecords/Pages/sharing-your-records.aspx
https://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/records/healthrecords/Pages/what_to_do.aspx
Alternatively, ask at reception for a leaflet.
Ordering your repeat medication (a reminder):
Please remember that we are now requesting that patients allow THREE WORKING DAYS for their medication to be processed instead of the previous two working days.
Please remember to order your medication in time to accommodate this request and don’t forget to allow an additional day or two if you need your medication delivering to one of our branch sites.
Many thanks!
Nicola Davies, Practice Manager
Dr. Will Hynds MA MB BChir MRCGP DRCOG DCH
Dr. Terese Tubman BMed MRCGP DipFFP
Dr Jonathan Jacoby MB BCh BSc (Hons) MRCGP