Summary Care Record

A Summary Care Record is a copy of your key information held in your GP record.

This information, with your consent, can be shared with other healthcare staff who are treating you i.e. If you were to unexpectedly admitted to hospital, they would be able to see some of your problems, medications and allergies. This will help the staff involved in your care make better and safer decisions and how best to treat you.

You have the choice of what information you would like to share and with whom. Authorised healthcare staff can only view your Summary Care Record with your permission.

We are able to share your choice of consent for you. Please let reception know which level of information you would like to be shared with other healthcare professional involved in your care.

Your options for sharing your Summary Care Record are:

  • Express consent for medication, allergies and adverse reactions only. You wish to share information about these.
  • Express consent for medication, allergies, adverse reactions and additional information. Additional information includes: your illnesses and health problems, operations and vaccinations, how you would like to be treated (such as where you would prefer to receive care), what support you might need and who should be contacted for more information about you.
  • Express dissent for Summary Care Record (opt out). This is if you DO NOT want any information shared with other healthcare professionals involved in your care.

More information

For further information visit the NHS Care records website.

Opting out

If you don’t want your identifiable patient data to be shared for purposes except for your own care, you can opt-out by registering a Type 1 Opt-out or a National Data Opt-out, or both. These opt-outs are different and they are explained in more detail below. Your individual care will not be affected if you opt-out using either option.

Type 1 Opt-out (opting out of NHS Digital collecting your data)

We will not collect data from GP practices about patients who have registered a Type 1 Opt-out with their practice. More information about Type 1 Opt-outs is in our GP Data for Planning and Research Transparency Notice, including a form that you can complete and send to your GP practice.

This collection will start on 1st September 2021 so if you do not want your data to be shared with NHS Digital please register your Type 1 Opt-out with your GP practice by 18th August 2021.

If you register a Type 1 Opt-out after this collection has started, no more of your data will be shared with us. We will however still hold the patient data which was shared with us before you registered the Type 1 Opt-out.

If you do not want NHS Digital to share your identifiable patient data with anyone else for purposes beyond your own care, then you can also register a National Data Opt-out.

National Data Opt-out (opting out of NHS Digital sharing your data)

We will collect data from GP medical records about patients who have registered a National Data Opt-out. The National Data Opt-out applies to identifiable patient data about your health, which is called confidential patient information.

NHS Digital won’t share any confidential patient information about you – this includes GP data, or other data we hold, such as hospital data – with other organisations, unless there is an exemption to this.

To find out more information and how to register a National Data Opt-Out, please read our GP Data for Planning and Research Transparency Notice.