Patient Records

Doctor viewing patient medical records on laptop

Sharing your medical record

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.

Summary care record

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 information from the GP practice were available to them.

This information can now be shared electronically via the Summary Care Record, used nationally across England

The information will 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.

If you would like to opt out, please ask reception for our opt-out form.

A parent or guardian can request to opt out children under 16, but ultimately it is the GP’s decision whether to create the records or not, because of their duty of care to the child. If you are the parent or guardian of a child under 16 and feel that they are able to understand, then you should make this information available to them.

Who Has Access?

Across all health care settings, including urgent care, community care and outpatient departments in England.

Information Source

GP record

Content

  • Your current medications
  • Any allergies you have
  • Any bad reactions you have had to medicines
  • Additional information (upon request to your GP)

For more information visit the NHS Digital website

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.

To opt-out of Sunray Surgery sharing your records please complete and submit our data sharing opt-out form.

To opt-out of the national NHS sharing your data for research and planning please visit the your NHS data matters page of the NHS website.

Requesting access to medical records

  • Please do not request access to patient medical records via email or telephone. 
  • Please visit the surgery with a form of identification and complete the necessary forms for this service. 
  • The forms can be obtained from surgery reception. 

Updating your records / personal data

If you are a registered Patient Access user you can view a lot of your medical records and history using their website or app, and update your personal details (address, phone number, email etc...). Patients not registered to use Patient Access can update their personal details using a simple online form or by requesting a form at the surgery reception desk.

Use Patient Access     Use our online form