Summary Care Records (SCR) - information for patients

Your Summary Care Record is a short summary of your GP medical records. It tells other health and care staff who care for you about the medicines you take and your allergies.

All patients registered with a GP have a Summary Care Record, unless they have told their practice not to have one. The information held in your Summary Care Record gives health and care professionals, away from your usual GP practice, access to information to provide you with safer care, reduce the risk of prescribing errors and improve your patient experience.

Your Summary Care Record contains basic information about allergies and medications and any reactions that you have had to medication in the past.

Health and care staff can give you better care if you need health care away from your usual GP surgery:

• in an emergency
• when you're on holiday
• when your surgery is closed
• at out-patient clinics
• when you visit a pharmacy

You can be reassured that if you have previously opted out of having a Summary Care Record, your preference will continue to be respected and applied until you tell us otherwise. 

Additional Information is included on your SCR

Some patients, including many with long term health conditions, may have agreed to have Additional Information shared as part of their Summary Care Record. This additional information includes significant medical history (past and present), reasons for medications, care plan information and immunisations. If you want your SCR to have this additional information included, please contact us.

Additional Information will include extra information from your GP record, including:

• health problems like dementia or diabetes
• details of your carer if we have this on record
• your treatment preferences
• communication needs, for example if you have hearing difficulties or need an interpreter

This will help medical staff care for you properly, and respect your choices, when you need care away from your GP practice. This is because having more information on your SCR means they will have a better understanding of your needs and preferences.

When you are treated away from your usual doctor's surgery, the health care staff there can't see your GP medical records. Looking at your SCR (especially with Additional Information) can speed up your care and make sure you are given the right medicines and treatment.

Protecting your SCR information
Staff will always ask your permission to view your SCR (except in an emergency where you are unconscious, for example) and only staff with the right levels of security clearance can access the system, so your information is secure. You can ask an organisation to show you a record of who has looked at your SCR - this is called a Subject Access Request.

Find out how to make a subject access request.

Opting out
The purpose of SCR is to improve the care that you receive, however, if you do not want to have an SCR you have the option to opt out. If this is your preference please inform your GP or fill in an SCR patient preferences form and return it to your GP practice.

Regardless of your past decisions about your Summary Care Record preferences, you can change your mind at any time.

You can choose any of the following options:

• To have a Summary Care Record with Additional Information shared. This means that any authorised, registered and regulated health and care professionals will be able to see a enriched Summary Care Record if they need to provide you with direct care.
• To have a Summary Care Record with core information only. This means that any authorised, registered and regulated health and care professionals will be able to see information about allergies and medications only in your Summary Care Record if they need to provide you with direct care.
• To opt-out of having a Summary Care Record altogether. This means that you do not want any information shared with other authorised, registered and regulated health and care professionals involved in your direct care, including in an emergency.

To make these changes, you should inform your GP practice or complete the SCR patient preferences form and return it to your GP practice.

More information on your health records
Read more about your medical records.

More about SCR
Summary Care Records (SCR) are an electronic record of important patient information, created from GP medical records. They can be seen and used by authorised staff in other areas of the health and care system involved in the patient's direct care.

With this in mind, the following cannot view your SCR and will not be approved:

• research purposes, including clinical trials
• police and other government departments
• non-clinical cosmetics