During the height of the pandemic changes were made to the Summary Care Record (SCR) to make additional patient information available to all appropriate clinicians when and where they needed it, to support direct patients care, leading to improvements in both care and outcomes.
These changes to the SCR will remain in place, unless you decide otherwise.
Regardless of your past decisions about your Summary Care Record preferences, you will still have the same options that you currently have in place to opt out of having a Summary Care Record, including the opportunity to opt-back in to having a Summary Care Record or opt back in to allow sharing of Additional Information.
You can exercise these choices by doing the following:
- Choose to have a Summary Care Record with all information shared. This means that any authorised, registered and regulated health and care professionals will be able to see a detailed Summary Care Record, including Core and Additional Information, if they need to provide you with direct care.
- Choose to have a Summary Care Record with Core information only. This means that any authorised, registered and regulated health and care professionals will be able to see limited information about allergies and medications in your Summary Care Record if they need to provide you with direct care.
- Choose to opt-out of having a Summary Care Record altogether. This means that you do not want any information shared with other authorised, registered and regulated health and care professionals involved in your direct care. You will not be able to change this preference at the time if you require direct care away from your GP practice. This means that no authorised, registered and regulated health and care professionals will be able to see information held in your GP records if they need to provide you with direct care, including in an emergency.
To make these changes, you should inform your GP practice or complete this form and return it to your GP practice.
Legal basis for sharing this data
In order for your Personal Data to be shared or processed, an appropriate 'legal basis' needs to be in place and recorded. The legal bases for direct care via SCR is the same as the legal bases for the care you would receive from your own GP, or another healthcare provider:
- for the processing of personal data: Article 6.1 (e) of the UK GDPR: 'processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller'.
- for the processing of 'Special Category Data' (which includes your medical information): Article 9.2 (h) of the UK GDPR: 'processing is necessary for the purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, for the assessment of the working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services'.
Your rights
Because the legal bases used for your care via SCR are the same as used in other direct care situations, the legal rights you have over this data under UK GDPR will also be the same- these are listed elsewhere in our privacy notice.
Find out more about SCR.