What is the SCR?

The SCR is intended to support patient care in urgent and emergency care settings, and provide a platform, through HealthSpace, to give patients access to their SCR. The SCR will store a defined set of key patient data for every patient in England except those who elect not to have one. This data will make a summary record created from information held on GP clinical systems. This summary record will help in ensuring continuity of care across a variety of care settings.

What does it mean for patients and NHS staff?

A patient's SCR will contain key health information including details of allergies, current prescriptions and bad reactions to medicines. Following the creation of this initial SCR, a patient and their doctor may add additional information to the patient's SCR. This must only be added with the explicit consent of the patient.

The availability of SCRs will assist in improving the safety and quality of patient care, by providing authorised healthcare staff with, easier access to reliable information about the patient to help with treatment.

As the patient is treated they will be asked by staff if they can look at their Summary Care Record every time they need to. Not everyone involved in the patient's care will be able to see all of their records. The amount of information staff can see will depend on their job. NHS staff who do not need to see information about the patient's treatment will not be able to view it – for example, non clinical staff will not have access to clinical information unless it is necessary for them to do their job.

Patients will also be able to access their Summary Care Record using the secure website HealthSpace, thus enabling them to have a degree of control of their healthcare and records.