Pharmacy organisations have pledged their “full support” for government plans to provide every pharmacy in England with access to the summary care record (SCR).

The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) announced yesterday (June 23) that NHS England had commissioned it to provide all pharmacists and technicians with “secure, approved and monitored access to the SCR”.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Pharmacy Voice and PSNC - which will all work in partnership with HSCIC for the SCR rollout - said they “welcomed and fully supported the deployment of access to the SCR” and would “all play our part”.

“We strongly believe [that] by extending SCR access to community pharmacists, people will receive better, safer and more accessible care,” the pharmacy bodies said in a joint letter.

“Patients can be assured their records are safe, as they can only be accessed by a registered pharmacist or pharmacy technician using an NHS smartcard and PIN, and then only after the patient has given consent,” they added.
 

“A step towards read-write access”

Pharmacy Voice chief executive Rob Darracott said the organisation had “worked closely with HSCIC and our members” during a pilot that granted SCR access to 140 pharmacies between September 2014 and March 2015. The pharmacy body was “very encouraged that the rollout would continue” across the community pharmacy network, he said.

“This is a first step to what we hope will be full read-write access to patient records,” Mr Darracott added.

Numark director of pharmacy services Mimi Lau said the announcement was a “significant step forward at a crucial time”, but agreed that the sector “must not stop there”.

“Pharmacists need to be able to have ‘write’ access as the second phase to the SCR. When this happens, pharmacists will be able to view and update medical records, making sure that the GP knows the outcome of each and every consultation,” she added.

Alastair Buxton, director of NHS services at PSNC, said the negotiator had been “pressing for shared records for over 10 years”.

General Pharmaceutical Council chief executive Duncan Rudkin assured patients that pharmacy professionals would have to “meet our standards when accessing patient records”.

“These standards make clear the responsibilities of pharmacy professionals and pharmacy owners, including holding patients’ information securely, obtaining patients’ consent before accessing their information and respecting their privacy,” Mr Rudkin added.

HSCIC said SCR access would allow pharmacists to deliver “better informed and tailored care”, and it would begin implementing its plans in the autumn. 

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