Patients to have online access to new record entries from December

Practices using the TPP IT system are to allow patients online access to all new entries in their medical record from December 2021, NHS Digital announced this week.

Patients whose practices use EMIS will be able to view their full prospective records via online accounts ‘from early 2022’, while arrangements for practice using Vision are ‘under discussion’, NHS Digital’s statement said.

NHS Digital said this will mean ‘GPs will need to consider the impact of each entry, including documents and test results, as they add them to the patient’s record’.

Patients will not be able to see any personal information such as positive test results until they have first been checked and filed, giving GPs the chance to contact them first.

NHS Digital advises that GP practice staff should:

• be aware that patients will be able to see their future records
• know how to manage this as a change to your workflow – ensuring sensitive information is redacted as it is entered onto the clinical system, or in rare circumstances know when it may be inappropriate to give a patient access to their record.

It refers practices to a support package, include webinars, guidance and online resources – available here.

It sad the change is part of the commitments laid out in the GP contract and the NHS Long Term Plan to provide patients with digital access to their health records; NHSX and NHS England ‘also aim to enable patients to request their historic coded records from 2022 through the NHS App’.