More than 20 GP practices from Bury Primary Care Trust (PCT) have become the second early adopter site for the Summary Care Record (SCR) as Connecting for Health (CfH) prepares to upload the first SCRs to the spine over the next few weeks.
A total of 23 out of 32 practices in Bury, covering 73 % of Bury’s population, are to take part in the early adopter programme from this week, joining 11 practices from Bolton PCT where the SCR programme was launched in March.
Dr Gillian Braunold, joint GP clinical lead for CfH, told EHI Primary Care: “The first two practices will be getting their uploads to the spine over the next few weeks.”
However although the SCRs will be held on the spine they will not be available to view by out-of-hours organisations and accident and emergency departments until there are enough records available to make it meaningful.
In Bury letters will be sent to approximately 113,000 patients over the next week and from Monday 11 June patients will have 16 weeks to make a decision about their own record. Patients can choose not to have a SCR, to have an SCR that is not shared routinely or consent to sharing.
The original plan in Bolton was to allow an eight week consultation phase before records were uploaded and a further eight weeks before records became available to share.
However the early adopter programme decided to merge the two consultation periods into one 16 week block to make it less confusing for patients and doctors.
The first two practices in Bolton are to have their records uploaded soon because they were launched using the original plan of two eight week periods.
Dr Braunold said Bury patients will also be the first in the country to be able to view and check their records online via Healthspace. Patients in Bolton will be able to view their records via Healthspace from July.
Bury GP Dr John Hampson said: "There are huge potential benefits from making
patient records available to all staff caring for them, through the secure NHS network.
If doctors and nurses have the right information about patients then they are able to make better decisions and advise patients about the care they need. I am delighted that Bury is amongst the first in the country to be undertaking work to improve patient care in this way."
Stephen Mills, chief executive of Bury PCT, added, "It’s a credit to our local teams and the work they’ve already put in to ensure robust computer systems at local GP Practices are giving Bury the opportunity to be one of the pioneers in this field. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and no doubt some challenges along the way, but I don’t doubt that the benefits to patients in Bury will make it worthwhile"
Dr Braunold said she had a “flotilla of PCTs” waiting to follow Bolton and Bury although some were being held back because some of the suppliers were not yet ready to proceed. She said a workshop planned for mid to later July would enable all the suppliers to learn the lessons from the early adopter programme to date.