My Care Record is an agreed approach between health and care organisations in the East of England region to securely share information when it is needed to deliver direct care. There are several other local and national programmes within the NHS that relate to how your data is used.
These include:
Population health management
Some information from your health and care records may be used by the NHS and wider Integrated Care System, to help design and improve services. For example, to plan the number of doctors, nurses and care workers that will be needed in the future. Information about you is pseudonymised, meaning that personal details are removed and individuals cannot be identified.
Population health management also aims to find groups of people at higher risk of ill health so that they can be offered targeted help more quickly. In these cases, authorised health and care professionals, such as GPs, can re-identify people when needed so that they can offer services to help them stay well.
More information is available on the NHS England website.
Summary Care Records
The Summary Care Record (SCR) is a national NHS system which allows information about you – such as allergies and medications - to be shared between clinicians to support urgent care across the country. Adding ‘additional information’ to your Summary Care Record, such as significant medical history, makes it a much more useful source of information for emergency departments and the ambulance service if they need to treat you wherever you are in the country.
It can be seen and used by authorised staff in other areas of the health and care system involved in an individual’s direct care.
More information is available here.
National planning and research - 'Your data matters to the NHS' / National data opt-out
A national campaign has taken place to inform the public about how their data is used for planning and research within the NHS. You can choose to opt-out if you do not wish your confidential patient information to be used in this way.
More information is available here: www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters
Patient Portals and the NHS App
Many health and care providers such as hospitals now offer tools to allow you to view information such as your test results and appointments online. Information will be available on each organisation’s website.
A range of services are available through the NHS App including access to information from your GP record. More information is available here: https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-app/about-the-nhs-app/
Each of these programmes have the appropriate legal basis and security measures in place to ensure your data is handled securely and responsibly.