EXCLUSIVE

NHS England has selected five areas where pharmacies will gain trial access to patient records.

Between 80 and 100 pharmacies across West Yorkshire, North Derbyshire, Northamptonshire, Somerset and Sheffield will be able to view summary care records (SCRs) as part of a government pilot due to begin in autumn, NHS England told C+D yesterday (August 27).

The list of pharmacies involved should be finalised in the "next couple of weeks", the commissioning body said.

NHS England said it had invited all of its area teams to express interest in the scheme, which was first announced in June. It was down to each area to determine how many pharmacies it wished to put forward based on their "local capacity, capability and stakeholder buy-in", the organisation explained.

Chief executive of Community Pharmacy West Yorkshire (CPWY) Robbie Turner told C+D the scheme could be an "important step" towards pharmacies gaining full read-write access to clinical records, and hoped it would demonstrate their clinical value.

"It's important that we demonstrate the usefulness and the benefit to patients of pharmacists having access to any form of clinical record. We certainly shouldn't be happy to stop here," he argued.

CPWY would work with the local NHS England area team to decide which pharmacists would take part, Mr Turner said, and the first local meeting on the pilot was taking place today (August 28).

High Hopes

Graham Archer, chief officer of Community Pharmacy Derbyshire, told C+D there was an opportunity for all pharmacies in the North Derbyshire CCG area to be involved. "Part of my role will be to enable assurances to be given to the local GPs," he said. "All the checks and balances and confidentiality will be in place and it will be access on a case-by-case basis. I hope it will be really, really successful."

In July, health minister Daniel Poulter said the pilot would determine whether patient record access improved "quality, safety, and continuity of care" in pharmacies and would shape the "optimum model" for pharmacy SCR access. The results of the pilot are due be published in early 2015.

In June, contractors told C+D the pilot should only be a "first step" towards allowing the sector to annotate patient records.

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