What is the Shared Care Record?

The Shared Care Record is a way of bringing together all your separate records from the different organisations involved in your health and care. It’s confidential and different to anything you might have heard of before.

It will let health and care professionals see relevant information about the care and treatment you’ve had across all services.

We know you only want to tell your story once when receiving care from any health or social care organisation across Herefordshire and Worcestershire. That’s why we’ve developed the Shared Care Record.

The first phase of the Shared Care Record will allow health and care professionals to view appropriate information contained in:

  • your GP practice medical record
  • information from secondary care, including hospitals, mental health and community services
  • radiology and pathology results
  • maternity records

Being able to see this information will help them give you the best care as quickly as possible without having to make phone calls or wait for other organisations to forward details on.

Some of their administrative and secretarial staff will also be able to see information so they can support the professionals. An example would be to send you an appointment letter.

All staff must follow the law on keeping your information confidential. Each time they look at your records this will be recorded to make sure they’re only looking at the right information, for the right reasons.

We’ll bring together information from GPs and allow it to be seen by health professionals in hospitals, including Emergency Departments. And we’ll add information from community and social care, ambulance and NHS 111 services.

We’ll carry on developing the Shared Care Record, allowing professionals across more health and social care settings to see information to support your care. We’ll also help services understand and find the best ways to meet people’s care needs.

There are strict rules around how we use your information. As part of this work, we’ll make sure it’s managed and viewed appropriately and in line with all legal requirements, including the General Data Protection Regulation (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/data-protection-act-2018). Official inspections, or audits, will check this is the case.

The organisations currently taking part in the programme are local health and care services:

  • GP practices in Herefordshire and Worcestershire
  • Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust
  • Wye Valley NHS Trust
  • Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust
  • West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust
  • Worcestershire County Council
  • Herefordshire Council
  • St Richards Hospice
  • Primrose Hospice
  • Kemp Hospice
  • St Michael’s Hospice

You don’t need to do anything. For anyone who is registered with a GP in Birmingham and Solihull, Coventry and Warwickshire, or Herefordshire and Worcestershire, the change is taking place automatically as we now switch on the Shared Care Record across the organisations taking part in the programme.

As we now have the capability to include the details of people under the age of 18, their records will also be available for health and care professionals to view through the Shared Care Record.

The benefits to you include:

  • not having to repeat your details every time you need care
  • better and, potentially, faster treatment as the professionals caring for you will be able to quickly see your records
  • not having to explain your social care support to health professionals
  • clinicians being able to see what medications you’re taking, what you’ve taken in the past, and if you have any allergies – making your treatment safer
  • more effective treatment should you need care for COVID-19, thanks to the fast availability of information about any pre-existing conditions you might have and your medications.

Yes, you have the right to object and opt out of allowing your records to be shared at any time if you are 16 years of age or older.

From the age of 13 to 16, we will consider your right to object if your form has been signed on your behalf by someone with parental responsibility.

If it has not, we will ask a recognised health or care professional if they consider you to be competent to make such a decision.

If you are under the age of 13, we will only consider your right to object if your form has been signed on your behalf by someone with parental responsibility.

We don’t recommend objecting, as information that could be vital when you need health or social care support – for instance, during a visit to a hospital Emergency Department – might not be immediately to hand as a result.

Objecting will mean the services giving you care will be unable to view your records from other services.

However, the decision is entirely yours. If you do want to object, details on how to do this can be found on our Right to Object page Right to Object :: Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care System (hwics.org.uk).

Please note, the Shared Care Record is different to anything you might have said no to before. So, if you don’t want your records to be available to view through it, you’ll need to object.

Back