Patients have a legal right to access information about them and their care held by the NHS and primary care contractors.
To meet this requirement and to reduce the burden on primary care associated with information requests, we are committed to working closely with GP IT system suppliers, professional bodies and commissioners to enable all patients to access their prospective health information through the NHS App.
For all practices that have not requested EMIS and TPP to pause, we are continuing to work at pace to make the necessary changes to allow patients access to their information. This will happen in a phased rollout, where suppliers will notify practices in advance of their planned switch on date. Data will only be visible from the date of switch on, so there will be no additional requirement for practices to review information that may have been entered since the 1 November.
For those practices that have asked EMIS and TPP not to enable this change, we have instructed both suppliers to pause. Recognising current pressures, we will continue to work with the BMA, RCGP and local commissioning teams to establish what further support is needed so practices can move quickly to offer all their patient's prospective access.
By giving practices more time to prepare, we will ensure the new functionality is available to be adopted throughout the country safely and effectively for the benefit of patients and clinicians alike.
We remain firmly committed to ensuring all practices across England provide this facility, in line with the 2019 GP Contract, so that patients can better manage their own health via easy access to information such as test results and referral letters.