1. What is GP Connect Update Record?

GP Connect Update Record is one of the enhancements to connect general practice and community pharmacy announced in the NHS England delivery plan for recovering access to primary care (May 2023). It supports three community pharmacy services: Pharmacy First, Blood Pressure Check, and Contraception services.

It allows authorised clinicians in community pharmacy to send digital pharmacy consultation summaries, including details of any medicines supplied, directly into general practice workflows for review and filing, instead of via NHSmail or letter.

This reduces practice burden, improves patient safety and supports safe clinical practice by removing the need to manually transcribe consultation summaries and medicines information into the GP patient record.

Update Record first went live with pilot sites in January 2024 and was rolled out nationally in April 2024. By September 2025, more than 10,000 community pharmacies have sent over 7,000,000 consultation summaries to general practices using Update Record.

2. How does GP Connect Update Record work?

Community pharmacy consultation summaries – including notes, observations, and medicines supplied – arrive in general practice workflows in a structured format.

A workflow task is created in the GP IT system for every summary received, so the practice team sees it before filing into the GP patient record with one click.  The Practice’s GP IT system supplier will have guidance on these processes.

The GP practice can amend the message including removing codes. The original message and the amendments will be tracked and be available in the GP IT system’s audit log. For further information please refer to the GP practice IT system supplier’s guidance.

If the GP practice rejects the entire message once they have reviewed it, the information will not filed to the patient’s record and sender will not be notified. There will be an audit record in the GP system.

The practice can choose to auto-file these messages by changing the settings in the practice system; please refer to system user guidance for details. This will still create a workflow task so that the information can be reviewed, however if auto-filing has been enabled, the information will be filed to the patient record without the need for practice staff to file it manually

Patient consent must be captured to share the consultation record with the GP for pharmacy services. Where enabled by the practice, pharmacy summaries may also be visible to patients in the NHS App and other patient-facing services, only once it has been filed in the patient’s GP record by the practice.

Any urgent actions are communicated by the pharmacy by directly calling the GP practice or via alternative agreed direct communications.

Prior to the new contractual requirement which came into effect on 1 October 2025, if a GP practice had not enabled Update Record in their clinical system, the pharmacy continued to send the consultation summary by NHSmail or letter for manual transcription. From 1 October 2025, all GP practices are required to enable Update Record functionality.

3. Why did NHS England introduce GP Connect Update Record?

It improves the way consultation information from community pharmacy reaches general practice by making the process quicker, safer, and less burdensome.

Without Update Record, practice teams must manually locate, read, and transcribe summaries sent by NHSmail or post.

With Update Record, structured summaries arrive directly in the workflow including information about medication supplied which can be reviewed and filed immediately where appropriate, ensuring timely updates to the record and improved safety.

4. What are the benefits?

Improves patient safety: Consultation information and supplied medicines can be made available in the GP record faster, reducing transcription errors and risks of over-prescribing and antimicrobial resistance.

Saves time: Reduces manual administration for both GP practices and pharmacies.

Faster information sharing: Data is visible sooner to other health and care professionals (via Summary Care Record and GP Connect Access Record) and to patients (via the NHS App, where enabled).

5. Can anyone send information into the GP record?

No. Update Record has only been clinically and technically assured for use between community pharmacy and general practice, and only for Pharmacy First, Blood Pressure Check and Contraception services.

Only registered community pharmacy professionals can use it, and the details of the clinician and the pharmacy site are visible to the practice team in the consultation and workflow views.

6. How were stakeholders involved?

NHS England worked with GPs, pharmacists, and their representative organisations – including the BMA, RCGP and CPE – through 2023 and 2024 on the models for Pharmacy First services and the supporting digital tools.

The design of Update Record was jointly agreed prior to launch and confirmed in March 2024, with ongoing engagement through webinars, supplier updates and regional teams.

7. What has changed in the October 2025 GP contract?

From 1 October 2025, GP practices are required to ensure Update Record is enabled within their clinical system, to allow community pharmacy registered professionals to send consultation summaries to the workflow of the patient’s registered GP practice.

8. Which IT suppliers are involved?

The suppliers clinically and technically assured to deploy Update Record are:

• GP IT systems: Optum and TPP
• Community pharmacy systems: Cegedim Healthcare Solutions, Optum, Positive Solutions, Sonar Informatics

Updated information on the progress of suppliers to integrate GP Connect into their systems can be viewed on the NHS England Digital website: GP Connect supplier progress – NHS England Digital

9. Will workload from other care settings increase?

No. Update Record is only for consultation summaries from community pharmacy registered professionals following Pharmacy First, Blood Pressure Check, and Contraception services. These communications are already received by GP practices by email or post. Any expansion to other care settings or services would require further engagement with GPs, the BMA, and RCGP.

10. Does Update Record affect GP data controller responsibilities?

No. Responsibilities remain unchanged:

• The provider of the update (community pharmacy) will be an independent controller in providing the update itself.

• Both the GP practice and provider of the update will be Joint Controllers in the updating of the healthcare record.
• Once the update is in the record, the GP practice will be an independent controller in relation to that record.
• NHS England is responsible for secure data transfer between care settings.

The wider responsibilities are outlined in the National Data Sharing Arrangement.

11. Do GPs become responsible for pharmacy treatment decisions?

No. Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians who are registered clinical professionals remain responsible for the appropriateness of the consultation and any supplied medicines.

GPs are only responsible for patient care from the point they become clinically involved, in line with the pharmacy service specifications which define when escalation or referral back to general practice is required.