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 verbally consented to by patients beforehand. Patients consent to sharing of the data held by a health provider out to another health providers and must also consent to which of the other providers can access their data.

For example, 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.

You are able to share your information with other health providers if you have access via the NHS App. 

The easiest way to access you records and test results is by using the NHS App the team at Willington surgery are happy to help you with this. 

You can also call us on 01283 703318 if you would like to know your test results.  We would always advise patients with concerns to contact us, as we will not contact you unless a follow up appointment is required. 

You can also contact us using the website link

The Central NHS Computer System called the Summary Care Record (SCR) is meant to help emergency doctors and nurses help you when you contact them when the surgery is closed. Initially, it will contain just your medications and allergies but has opened up to other areas in the last few years. 

The central NHS computer system is constantly being devleoped, other staff who work in the NHS will be able to access it along with information from hospitals, out of hours services, and specialists letters that may be added as well.

Your information will be extracted from practices such as ours and held on central NHS databases.   

As with all systems, there are pros and cons to think about. When you speak to an emergency doctor, you might overlook something that is important and, if they have access to your medical record, it might avoid mistakes or problems, although even then, you should be asked to give your consent each time a member of NHS Staff wishes to access your record, unless you are medically unable to do so.

You will also have access to your data to chare with other healthcare providers via the NHS App.  This might only have data from when the access was added so the summary care record (SCR) is still important. 

On the other hand, you may have strong views about sharing your personal information and wish to keep your information at the level of this practice. Connecting for Health (CfH), the government agency responsible for the Summary Care Record have agreed with doctors’ leaders that new patients registering with this practice should be able to decide whether or not their information is uploaded to the Central NHS Computer System.

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.