Patchy SCR roll out nears 10 per cent

The NHS in England has created Summary Care Records for 8.5% of the population with the leading region, NHS North East, creating SCRs for one in six.

A survey of strategic health authority progress on the SCR by EHI Primary Care found a range of uptake figures across the country and variable enthusiasm for wider roll-out.

Summary Care Record progress so far

The survey, conducted over the past seven days, found NHS North East had covered the highest percentage of its population so far (17.6%), followed by NHS Yorkshire and the Humber (14%), NHS South West (13.9%), and NHS East of England (10.3%).

However, NHS East of England is hoping to roll-out the SCR to 92% of its population by September. Most SHAs say they have not set a target, including NHS South Central, which has the lowest roll-out figures.

NHS East of England has the most ambitious plans for roll-out, having missed its original target to roll-out the record to 100% of patients by December last year.

During parts of the year, uploads and patient information programmes were suspended nationally during a row about accelerated roll-out and while two new reviews of the programme were conducted.

A spokesperson for NHS East of England told EHI Primary Care that it still aimed to roll-out the record to its entire population.

She added: “Our ambition is that by September 2011, 92% of the population will have a Summary Care Record and that those SCRs are available and being used in unscheduled care settings to improve the care being delivered to patients.”

By the beginning of this week, almost 4.4m patients from 662 GP practices in England had an SCR; an increase of more than 100% since the beginning of July 2010.

Even so, this means 90% of the population have yet to have an SCR created for them. And SCRs are only available in a small number of NHS organisations beyond the GP practices in which they were created.

NHS Connecting for Health statistics show ten out-of-hours services, two walk-in centres, one hospital emergency department, two hospital pharmacies, one learning disabilities short stay centre, one early pregnancy unit and one mental health service are viewing SCRs.

Most of the SHAs contacted by EHI Primary Care said further roll-out would be determined locally by primary care trusts in talks with GP practices and subject to the availability of GP compliant systems.

Others said they were working towards the Operating Framework target for 2010-11, which requires completion of roll-out by the end of 2012-13, subject to the availability of compliant systems.

NHS South Central had created the lowest percentage of SCRs for its patients with just 1% of summary records uploaded.

A spokesperson told EHI Primary Care: “We don’t have a target date for roll-out to the entire population – but roll-out will continue.”

The BMA’s GP committee is in talks with CfH about the outcome of the Department of Health’s reviews of the consent model and content of the SCR. This week, it said it had been “working productively” with CfH on the details of implementing the recommendations of the reviews.

It said guidance to support practices that are considering implementing SCRs in accordance with the review recommendations is expected to be available shortly.

In December, the GPC said GP practices can consider their local circumstances and make their own decisions about whether to proceed or wait for guidance.

The BMA said that it had also been involved in smartcard review workshops looking at balancing ease of use of the SCR with the need to ensure patient information is secure and confidential.