Access to GP records at the Royal Surrey

Currently, if you are unwell and need to go to the Royal Surrey County Hospital, the hospital is unable to access your GP record. This means they can only go on what you can tell them about your health. They can always contact us when the practice is open, but at the weekend or overnight it could be extremely valuable for your care if the hospital could see all of your health information, particularly if your health is very complex or you are seriously unwell.

The Royal Surrey now has a small number of computer terminals which have the same computer system as our GP record and a limited number of senior staff have the log-in details to be able to access GP records in an urgent situation like this. The hospital has now asked local practices to consent to their patient's records to be made accessible in this way.

Clearly this could be hugely beneficial for some people if they are admitted to the Royal Surrey, and even life-saving, and so we are very keen to take part in this - but we are also very mindful that patient records are highly confidential and must be treated with the utmost care. We have, therefore, been working very hard with the hospital to get this set up, but in a way that is safe and secure with robust auditing to make sure that access is always and only ever used in the best interest of the patient being cared for.

If you are concerned about your record being viewed in this way then you are able to opt out at any time. Simply let reception know and we will mark your record so that it cannot be accessed at the hospital. If you have already opted out of Summary Care Record sharing then you will automatically be opted out of this system as well. We plan to permit access in this way from 1st December 2017 and you can opt out before or after that date, or indeed opt back in again at a later stage.

Please take a look at this leaflet which explains the scheme in more detail.