Summary Care Record launched in Bolton
- 24 October 2007
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The first 48,500 summaries of patient records have been uploaded to the NHS Spine and out-of-hours staff in the Bolton pilot area will start using them over the next few weeks, Connecting for Health announced today.
Bolton in North-west England was the first primary care trust to take part in the NHS Care Records Service Early Adopter Programme. Final staff training is underway at the town’s out-of-hours service which deals with, on average, over 5,500 calls per month from patients who require access to a GP outside of their own surgery’s opening hours.
Connecting for Health (CfH) estimates that – with the current upload figure – around 900 calls per month could be from patients with NHS Summary Care Records (SCR).
Announcing the milestone in the NHS Summary Care Records programme, CfH said: “The records, which contain key medical information, including current medications, allergies and previous bad reactions to medication, have been uploaded from eight GP practices.
“This means that approximately 17% of the total Bolton population now has an NHS Summary Care Record. A further three practices are due to upload records in the next few weeks, with more to follow shortly afterwards. This staged approach has been adopted so that the PCT can carefully monitor progress every step of the way and ensure everything runs smoothly with the new system.”
CfH first launched the SCR at Bolton PCT in March and the PCT says it is excited to be moving forward in making the records available to out-of-hours staff.
Dr John Dean, the PCT’s medical director for quality and care improvement, said: “This exciting development will help us to deliver faster and safer care to our patients. Having accurate information on the patient’s medication and allergies is key to ensuring the right treatment. Staff are looking forward to having this information available for increasing numbers of the patients they see as more records are made available.”
But there is local scepticism about the exercise, too. A recent survey by the Bolton Local Medical Committee (LMC) was sent to all 169 GPs in the area, and from 98 responses, just 20 said they were in favour of proceeding with the SCR.
These results indicate that almost 70% of GPs working in Bolton are not in favour of the SCR being turned on.
Dr Chris Woods of the Bolton LMC told EHI Primary Care: “A significant number of doctors have reservations about the Summary Care Record. There are some serious concerns about the system, especially around the issues surrounding it connected with the nature of consent, confidentiality, cost and accuracy of data.
“I think there are some distinct reservations about the system which need to be settled, but it is only in pilot phase and we will have to see what comes of it. Perhaps it would be useful to have a local, or even national debate on the issue, as it is the cause of a great degree of controversy, not just in Bolton, but in England as a whole.”
Bolton has 57 GP practices and participation in the early adopter programme is not compulsory.
CfH say that eight practices have uploaded records, three more will follow soon and a further 23 practices have expressed an interest to become involved in the programme over the next few months.
NHS staff working in the out-of-hours service will only access the records of patients whose treatment they are directly involved in, and each time a record is accessed an audit trail will be created showing who accessed the information and when.
Initially, access to the SCRs will only be possible at key locations in the local area – A&E at the Royal Bolton Hospital, local out-of-hours services and the PCT’s walk-in centre.
The creation of SCRs for England runs parallel similar moves in Wales and Scotland. Scotland has the Emergency Care Summary which available to staff in emergency and unplanned care. Wales is developing the Individual Care Record, currently being piloted in Gwent, which is designed to assist clinicians working in OOH and emergency settings.
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Joe Fernandez
