Call for pay to discuss records with patients

GP representatives are calling for GP practices to be paid for the work involved in discussing records with patients before they are uploaded to the spine.

The British Medical Association’s General Practitioner Committee has told GPs that it is continuing to back an opt-in consent model for the Summary Care Record but is aware that this brings “huge additional workload implications” for practices.

The GPC adds: “We have said that practices would rather see this than an opt-out process with minimal workload and a breakdown in patient trust in their GP. It should be underlined that only pilots are being proposed at the moment but we are absolutely clear that we have to see this additional work resourced.”

Dr Richard Vautrey, a member of the GPC’s negotiating team and a GP in Leeds, told EHI Primary Care that the issue had not yet been addressed with the Department of Health (DH) as the GPC’s understanding was that rollout beyond the pilot practices would not begin until the 2008/9 financial year.

He added: “We need to wait and see what happens in reality in the pilot areas but our expectation is that if patients are actively being encouraged to make an appointment to look at their records and discuss them that will create new work that will need to be resourced.”

Last month the DH accepted the recommendations of a ministerial taskforce on implementation of the Summary Care Record that an implied consent model should be retained while widening the opportunities for patients to opt-out. The taskforce recommended that, through a publicity campaign, patients in the pilot areas should be informed that they have a right to view their record either via their GP or through HealthSpace before the record is uploaded.

Following publication of the report the DH said patients would also have the right to request that their details are not uploaded to the spine.

However the GPC says that, despite the pledge, this remains “an unresolved issue” which it hopes will be tackled by a new advisory group on the SCR chaired by the deputy chief medical officer, Professor Martin Marshall.

The GPC is also advising practices that adding Read codes such as 93c3 to the records of those patients who wish to opt-out may not be worth doing at the moment as any codes could be ignored by the creators of the system and not offer protection to patients.

Dr Vautrey added: “It’s too early to be putting in codes yet because it’s not clear how patients can opt-out. If practices do ask to opt-out we suggest that practices make a note of the patient’s name and details and tell them the practice will contact them when their area has permission to go live. That’s the time for patients to make a judgement about opting-in and opting-out.”