Your patient record is held securely and confidentially on the electronic system at your GP practice. If you require treatment in another NHS healthcare setting such as an Emergency Department or Minor Injury Unit, those treating you would be better able to give you appropriate care if some of the information from the GP practice were available to them.

This information can now be shared electronically via: The National Care Records Service (NCRS), used nationally across England.

NCRS is a viewing platform, with information to be used only by authorised health care professionals directly involved in your care. Your permission will be asked before the information is accessed, unless the clinician is unable to ask you and there is a clinical reason for access.

NCRS should be used:

• where access to a summary of key patient information is required to support clinical decision making where full detailed patient records are not required.
• to compliment local shared records by giving access to key patient information across ICS boundaries.
• where a local shared care record is not available currently.

The NCRS will show a patients Summary Care Record (SCR), which is a national database that holds electronic records of important patient information such as current medication, allergies and details of any previous bad reactions to medicines, created from GP medical records. It can be seen and used by authorised staff involved in the patient's direct care. Your SCR is created automatically when registered with a GP practice in England. 

For more information, please visit www.digital.nhs.uk.