Once you have been registered with a practice, you can apply for on-line access. If you wish to register for this, to see your patient record, order repeat medications, book appointments and/or check on test results etc. please click HERE for information and necessary forms.

You can access your medical record by downloading the NHS App. Once you have registered and your ID has been verified you will be able to book appointments, order medications, check test results, get healthcare advice, contact your practice non-urgently, as well having access to your record. It's 24/7 service.

Click HERE to get the App

Watch a video about the App HERE

Increasingly, patient medical data is shared e.g. between GP surgeries and District Nursing, in order to give clinicians access to the most up to date information when attending patients.

The systems we operate require that any sharing of medical information is consented to by patients beforehand. Patients must consent to sharing of the data held by a health provider out to other health providers and must also consent to which of the other providers can access their data.

e.g. it may be necessary to share data held in GP practices with district nurses but the local podiatry department would not need to see it to undertake their work. In this case, patients would allow the surgery to share their data, they would allow the district nurses to access it but they would not allow access by the podiatry department. In this way access to patient data is under patients' control and can be shared on a 'need to know' basis.

DATA OPT-OUT

The national data opt-out is a service that allows patients to opt out of their confidential patient information being used for research and planning. Here's the link if you want to find out more: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/national-data-opt-out

If you want to find out how and why data is used and more information from NHS Digital on opting out, please click Advice for the Public

From 1st November 2023, all patients aged 16 and above, registered with a general practitioner will have the ability to automatically view information subsequently added to their electronic GP record – that is, information added on or after 1st November.

For patients who already have full online records access, nothing will change.

For patients who have “core” online access – that is, the ability to just request repeat medication, make appointments, and update demographic information – they will now be able to view new information added to their GP record – consultations, results, documents, free text etc. from 1st November onwards.

For patients who do not currently have online access, whenever they  sign up to the NHS App they will automatically be able to view information added to their GP record from 1st November 2023 onwards

For young people who have an NHS App login, they will automatically get independent record access once they turn 16. 

For new patients registering with the practice after 1st November, access will be given from the patient's registration date.

From 1st November 2023, GP practices are obliged to provide patients with access to their patient record. To find out what this means and how to approach this carefully, click on the image.

Find out more about access to your online record from 1st November 2023 by watching this video from NHS Digital.

If you do not have online record access and do not want it, you can still access your GP health record by requesting this information through our Clinical Administration team, based at Stratton & Holsworthy Medical Centres. 

There is a Central NHS Computer System called the Summary Care Record (SCR). The Summary Care Record is meant to help emergency doctors and nurses help you when you contact them when the surgery is closed. Initially, it will contain your medications and allergies.

As the central NHS computer system develops, other staff who work in the NHS will be able to access it along with information from hospitals, out of hours services, and specialists letters that may be added as well.

Your information may be extracted from practices such as ours and held on central NHS databases.   

As with all systems there are pros and cons to think about. When you speak to an emergency doctor you might overlook something that is important and if they have access to your medical record it might avoid mistakes or problems, although even then, you should be asked to give your consent each time a member of NHS Staff wishes to access your record, unless you are medically unable to do so.

On the other hand, you may have strong views about sharing your personal information and wish to keep your information at the level of this practice. Connecting for Health (CfH), the government agency responsible for the Summary Care Record have agreed with doctors’ leaders that new patients registering with this practice should be able to decide whether or not their information is uploaded to the Central NHS Computer System.

For existing patients it is different in that it is assumed that you want your record uploaded to the Central NHS Computer System unless you actively opt out.