The NHS Summary Care Record (SCR) is a national database that holds electronic records of important patient information such as current medication, allergies and details of any previous bad reactions to medicines, created from GP medical records. It can be seen and used by authorised staff in other areas of the health and care system involved in the patient’s direct care.

The GP record is known as the ‘source record’. Information is updated every time a relevant change is recorded in the patient’s GP medical record.

The information held in a summary care record gives registered and regulated healthcare professionals, away from the patient’s usual GP practice, access to information to provide safer care, reduce the risk of prescribing errors, and improve the patient experience.

Putting the right information in the hands of doctors, nurses, and other health and care professionals at the right time saves lives and improves outcomes.

The NHS England web pages on the summary care record, provide comprehensive information about the SCR and additional information in the SCR, how it can be accessed, its uses and benefits, and  associated services like the National Care Record Service.

Recording medicines prescribed outside general practice

Not all medications are prescribed within a general practice.  Other care settings, such as accident and emergency departments, community pharmacies, and by other clinical professionals like paramedics and dentists, can also prescribe medication to patients, including repeat medication.

If these medications are not recorded back into the GP practice record, this could result in healthcare professionals not having enough information to make an informed clinical decision about a patient’s care and may put patients at risk of medication errors.

Recording medicines prescribed elsewhere into the GP practice record explains why medicines prescribed outside a patient’s GP practice must be recorded into their GP practice record as soon as the practice is made aware, and the implications to the SCR when this is not done.  It also explains what steps GP practices can take to ensure that this information is recorded correctly.

Important points to note

The following are key things for practices to be aware of:

• If there is a break in the GP record, for example because a patient moved away from England or joined the armed forces, the record must be reviewed and updated on their return.
• Check the date the SCR was last updated. It may not be current.  If this is the case, when the patient attends an appointment, their SCR will be updated.  This is important particularly, but not exclusively, for those patients who are, for whatever reason, classed as vulnerable.
• If a patient has recently changed GP, the SCR may not be created or fully updated.  Checks should always be made to ensure the patient consents to an SCR by using the patient consent preference form.  Consent is enduring, so the SCR is kept up to date in real time as the GP record is updated.  It is good practice for new patient registrations to be screened and any important information such as current medication, ongoing problems, carers details etc to be updated at that initial consultation.
• A screen message may inform that certain entries (sensitive information) have been deliberately withheld from the summary.  Once full record access is granted to patients through the accelerating patient access to their record programme, it is important that clinicians consider the impact of each entry, including documents and test results, as they add them to a patient’s record.
• Practices should record medicines prescribed elsewhere into the GP practice record to ensure records are accurate and up to date.
• If a patient’s GP record is updated with some SCR-relevant information by a user who has logged on with username and password rather than a smartcard, the information sits in the background until the next smartcard user in that practice logs on, opening the gateway to allow the information to flow to the SCR.
• If there is a break in the GP record, for example because a patient moved away from England or joined the armed forces, the record must be reviewed and updated on their return

Related GPG content

• Subject access requests
• Smartcards and role-based access
• NHS CIS2
• Electronic Prescription Service (EPS)
• eReferrals
• Consent to record sharing
• Shared care records
• NHS App
• Digitisation of Lloyd George records

Other helpful resources

• NHS Digital, SCR supplementary privacy notice
• NHS England, Accessible information Standard and Summary Care records
• UK, About the NHS App
• NHS England, Subject access requests