Q: What is the St Helens Shared Care Record?
The St Helens Shared Care Record is a secure virtual health and social care record. It pulls key information from several different health and social care records and stores it in one combined record. This enables health and social care professionals to find all the key information for your care in one place.
At the moment, every health and social care organisation that you use has a different set of patient or service user records for you. These records may duplicate information or one record might hold information about your treatment, care and support that another one doesn’t. To provide the best care to you as a patient or service user it is essential that health and social care professionals have access to the most up-to-date information.
Q: What is held on my St Helens Shared Care Record?
The St Helens Shared Care Record only holds summary details, not your full health or social care record, but it will hold details recorded by the health and social care professionals that have recently seen you, dates of recent and future appointments and who they are with and a summary of diagnosis, test results, outcomes and prescriptions issued as a result of those appointments.
Q: Which Health and Social Care Professionals will be given access to the St Helens Shared Care Record?
Only staff employed or on permanent or temporary contracts with the NHS or a Local Authority will be given access to the St Helens Shared Care Record. Staff should only access the St Helens Shared Care Record with a valid reason that relates to the direct delivery of your care.
All staff are trained about the confidentiality of personal information and required contractually to adhere to your data protection rights, with disciplinary procedure enforced if they abuse this.
Q: Why do you need to share my information?
To provide the best treatment, care and support to you as a patient or service user it is essential that health and social care professionals have access to the most up-to-date information. Information is already shared between health and social care organisations by phone and through paper records.
The St Helens Shared Care Record allows this sharing process to happen more efficiently, enabling better care for you.
Q: What if I don’t want or consent to my data being shared?
If you do not want your data to be shared you can ‘opt out’ and a St Helens Shared Care Record will not be created for you. To do this, please click here However once you have done this the only way to change this is to contact us on 01744 64 6868
You don’t have to give consent – health and care workers will be able to access your shared record unless you have opted out.
Q: Are staff able to view all records?
Staff can only view records for their registered patients.
Q: How do I know who has accessed my record?
You can ask any of the staff who are providing your care to find out who has accessed your shared care record and they can request an audit report to show all staff who have accessed your record, when and where. This may take a couple of days and could be sent to you or picked up at your next visit.
Q: What do I do if I think staff have been accessing my record when they should not have done?
Make an official complaint to the organisation the staff member works for and it will be investigated. It is a disciplinary offence to access information inappropriately and could result in dismissal if staff cannot justify that the access was for your well-being.
Q: What kind of information is included in the St Helens Shared Care Record?
The more health or social care organisations involved in your care the more information will be shared in your Shared Care Record. The following organisations share:
St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust:
- Outpatient appointments, inpatient stays & clinical contacts
- Referrals & discharge information
- Test results
St Helens General Practice Surgeries – To see if your GP surgery has signed up to the St Helens Shared Care Record click here
- Address & telephone numbers
- Problem diagnosis list
- Medications prescribed
- Recorded allergies
North West Boroughs NHS Foundation Trust
- Indicators to active or open referrals
- Contact details of care professionals
St Helens Council (social care services)
- Indicators to active or open referrals
- Contact details to care professionals
GP Out of Hours Services - Coming soon
UC24 who provide GP Extended Access appointments in St Helens - Coming soon
Q: Will the St Helens Shared Care Record link to the national organ donor register?
No. The project is focused on providing health and social care professionals in St Helens with access to information to improve care directly. For more information around the national organ donor register, please see www.organdonation.nhs.uk.
Q: How do I know my records are kept secure?
By law, everyone working in, or on behalf of, the NHS and adult social care must follow strict information governance rules designed to respect your privacy and keep all information about you safe. The St Helens Shared Care Record will be held on a secure, encrypted system. The system keeps a record of everyone who has accessed a patient record, the time and date when they accessed it and the information they were viewing. The laws on data protection are clear and we take them very seriously. We regularly check to make sure that only people who need to see your patient record are viewing it.
Q: Can anybody see my records?
Your medical records will still be confidential. They will only be looked at by people who are directly involved in your care. Your information isn’t shared with anyone who doesn’t need it to provide treatment, care and support to you.
Your details will be kept safe and won’t be made public, passed on to a third party who is not directly involved in your care, used for advertising or sold.
Q: Who can amend or add information to my St Helens Shared Care Record?
The Record is a view only system which draws information from several health and social care systems. Information cannot be added or amended on the St Helens Shared Care Record. Health and social care professional can still update your records within their own systems; any changes made in these systems will be reflected in information in your St Helens Shared Care Record.
Q: If I receive treatment or care outside the St Helens area can health and social care professionals see my St Helens Shared Care Record?
No. The St Helens Shared Care Record is only available to the NHS and social care organisations in St Helens that have signed up to the system. However there is a separate national project called the Summary Care Record. Going forward, the plan is to involve other health organisations wider than just in St Helens including the North West Ambulance Service and other hospital trusts outside the local area where you might go to receive specialist treatment.
As the name suggests, the Summary Care Record does not contain detailed information about a patient’s medical history, but contains a summary of important health information. More information about the Summary Care Record can be found at www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk
Q: Can I choose who can access my St Helens Shared Care Record?
No. The system works at the care provider level and we are not able to set up individually tailored requests for access simply because it would be very complex to administer and manage. We have purposely included other organisations such as community care, mental health care or social care services so that we can deliver the very best care for the people registered with a GP practice in St Helens.
We are only sharing commonly asked for information and have put safeguards in place so that only people directly involved in your care will have access to it.
Q: Can I access my St Helens Shared Care Record?
At the moment the St Helens Shared Care Record is only available to registered Health and Social Care professionals in St Helens.
Patients have the right under The Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request access to any information that an organisation holds about them. This includes copies of paper, electronic and hybrid patient Health Records.
More information about The Freedom of Information Act 2000 can be found at https://www.gov.uk/make-a-freedom-of-information-request
Q: Can I opt out of my records being shared via the St Helens Shared Care Record?
Yes, you can choose not to have a St Helens Shared Care Record. It is your choice but sharing your medical and social care information through a Shared Care Record will make it easier to provide the best quality care and support for you. If you have any doubts about your records being shared you can talk to your GP in the first instance.
If you decide to opt out, you will still be provided with excellent care, but when care professionals need to access information from your medical history they will do so via traditional methods such as phone, fax and post. For information on how to opt out click here
Q: Can I opt back into the St Helens Shared Care Record at a later date?
Yes, if you have chosen not to have a shared record created, you can choose to opt back into the St Helens Shared Care Record at any time by contacting us 01744 64 6868
Q: What do I do if I would like to make a complaint about improper use of my St Helens Shared Care Record?
Please contact the care provider alleged of improper use directly to register a complaint.