Terminology explained
Authorised care staff
The term ‘Authorised care staff’ is used to cover staff with a role in the direct care of residents, for example:
- care home manager
- deputy care home manager
- clinical lead
- administrator
- receptionist
- nurses and other health care professionals
- authorised care staff
- activity coordinators
- pharmacy staff
Authorised staff may have different levels of access according to the roles they carry out, for example:
| Record element | Staff responsibility |
| Allergies and adverse reactions | Resident safety |
| Immunisations | Current immunisation status and next due dates |
| Problems and diagnoses | Meeting direct care needs |
| Medication | Meeting direct care needs and medicines optimisation
Ordering medication |
| Test results | Meeting direct care needs and providing appropriate response with treatment |
| Clinical correspondence | Meeting direct care needs and providing appropriate response with treatment
Long-term personalised care planning and support virtually |
| Appointments | Management of direct long-term care needs |
Care home lead
The care home lead is the member of staff agreed as the project leader for proxy access implementation. This may be the care home manager, their deputy, or another member of the team appointed by the care home manager. It is their job to have oversight of the whole process and to manage the steps needed to implement the agreed outcomes.
Care home lead
The care home lead is the member of staff agreed as the project leader for proxy access implementation. This may be the care home manager, their deputy, or another member of the team appointed by the care home manager. It is their job to have oversight of the whole process and to manage the steps needed to implement the agreed outcomes.
Patient and resident
Care homes generally talk about ‘residents’ and GP practices refer to ‘patients’. You can assume in this guidance that the resident and patient are one and the same.
GP and GP practice lead
GP or GP practice lead may refer to an individual general practitioner but is more likely to mean a member of the wider practice team. General practices are encouraged to seek support and guidance (where available) from their local Clinical Commissioning Group or Integrated Care System leads about these roles.
GP systems
The GP IT systems which allow proxy access to be set up for care homes are EMIS Web and TPP SystmOne. Microtest and Vision Health do not have this functionality for care homes at present.
View the next sections in this guide: