Bulletin 54 – 28 Apr 2020


Summary Care Record – Additional Information (SCR)AI

To help the NHS to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, NHSX and NHS Digital are improving the access that doctors, nurses and other authorised health and care professionals have to medical records and information. This will help them to more safely treat and advise patients who are not attending their usual GP practice or who have called NHS 111, or who are receiving direct care in another setting. This letter explains the temporary changes being made to GP Connect and to the Summary Care Record (SCR) to enable this. In terms of the SCR, authorised health and care professionals who currently have view access in other settings, such as A&E, ambulances, or community pharmacies, will now see the Additional Information where that is available. In line with current practice, patients’ should be asked for their permission to view before accessing SCR details, unless the patient is unable to give consent in an emergency.

The SCR project involved multi-disciplinary working across a number of different organisations, and special mention has been given nationally to Dr Paul Atkinson and Claire Lambie from our Gloucestershire team, who provided the impetus for this work.

GP Access to GHNHSFT’s Electronic Patient Record (EPR)


Further to our 21st April 2020 bulletin, Sunrise accounts are currently being set up to give practices digital access to hospital admission and discharge information. Please be aware that IT may not be able to issue access details until they have increased the capacity of the Gloucestershire network; work on this is underway and will be reviewed on Wednesday. Thank you for your patience - we will keep you updated with progress. If you haven’t already requested access to Sunrise but would like this, please send requests to the Digital Transformation Primary Care Lead. (Requests for accounts are for GPs only). 

NHS App update for repeat prescriptions

NHS Digital has added functionality to the NHS App which allows all patients across England to choose a pharmacy to have their repeat prescriptions sent to. This is something patients could already do in their GP practices, pharmacies or via some GP and pharmacy online services, but this functionality now means patients can nominate a pharmacy no matter which IT system their GP surgery uses and without having to leave home.