Medical Records
You may have seen posters in the surgery encouraging you to register to use the internet to book your appointments and order your repeat prescriptions. We are now entering the next exciting phase in the electronic healthcare revolution; online access to your own medical records.
Because of the interest several of you have shown and your high level of use of the original services (273 of you have registered so far), we have been chosen to develop medical record access by our IT partners EMIS and PAERS (the companies from whom we bought the self book-in touch screen that most of you now use at reception).
Medical record access will allow you to see your recent consultations and letters regarding you sent between your GP and the hospitals. A summary of your past and present problems , allergies, results of investigations and medications will also be available - more complex medical words are explained and there are also links from your medications to explanations and other patients experiences with the same medicines as you are taking. Your own records are obviously very confidential and we require your personal consent to access it. The access is password protected and kept on a secure server outside of the Department of Health or the Governments' access or control. Part of the reason for sharing your records is to improve their quality and we expect 12% of you to find errors in the records which we will correct for you.
Please ask at reception if you wish either a registration form to sign in for the basic EMISAccess service or a consent form to take part in the development of the new service - viewing your own medical records.
We are happy for parents or guardians to see their children's records till they are aged 10 - after this age access will be blocked and then it will depend on the child's wishes (if they are competent to decide).