East of England joins SCR roll-out

Tags: CfH GP GPs London NHS East of England NPfIT Out-of-hours SHA Summary Care Record

25 Nov 2009

NHS East of England has started the roll-out of the Summary Care Record and says it will be available in all its primary care trusts by the end of 2010.

The strategic health authority plans to follow the lead set by one of its PCTs, NHS South West Essex, which has already created SCRs for a third of the population. The SHA said an SCR would soon to be available for more than half of the 440,000 patients registered with GPs in South West Essex.

NHS South West Essex was one of six early adopter areas for the SCR and the SHA said more than 50 GP surgeries in South Wes t Essex had so far signed up to the SCR scheme.

Graham Folmer, chief information officer for NHS East of England, said there was strong evidence from SCR early adopters across the country of improvements in out-of-hours care.

He added: “The Summary Care Record ensures that doctors have reliable, relevant, up-to-date information at their fingertips in situations where time is critical. This can improve the safety and treatment of care provided to patients.”

The official launch of the SCR in NHS East of England follows the launch of the SCR in London last week.

NHS Connecting for Health said SCRs have been uploaded in ten areas of the country and that more than 1.6m people in 16 areas of the country have received letters about SCRs.

The average opt-out rate is 0.8%. Latest statistics for the week beginning 19 November show 717,105 SCRs have now been created on the Spine.

Fiona Barr

London SCR roll out announced (16 Nov 2009) (1)
SCR data accreditation 'to be dropped' (13 Oct 2009) (5)
SCR evaluation data shows added value (08 Sep 2009)
Summary Care Record use jumps in Bolton (26 May 2009) (7)
Bury using SCR for end of life care (05 May 2009)

Reader's Comments

whole systems and benefits

maryhawking@tigers.demon.co.uk

26 Nov 09 20:11

"Graham Folmer, chief information officer for NHS East of England, said there was strong evidence from SCR early adopters across the country of improvements in out-of-hours care"

This is obviously very good news, and a very good reason for supporting the introduction of the SCR. Surely this evidence should be widely publicied?

One of the problems, it seems to me, is that this is a classic chicken and egg situation. The reason for implementing any form of SCR - Scottish and Welsh (information available and clearly defined) or English is that it requires :- a. a highly significant number of practices to be uploading b. end users (A&E, ambulances, OOH - to both be aware of the availability and to have the technology and framework to be able to access the SCR.

So, question for all CIOs: how do you plan to implement the end-user aspect, and, in the absence of local secondary and emergency services being provided with the tools **and organisational change** to access the SCRs, how do you identify benefits?

Where can we - and others - find the "strong evidence from SCR early adopters across the country of improvements in out-of-hours care" - which needs to be provided for doubtful patients considering their options?