Connecting for Health (CfH) has agreed that information should only be uploaded onto summary care records once GPs and PCTs agree patients have been adequately informed about the programme, the British Medical Association (BMA) has said.

The agency would also work with GPs to define what local awareness campaigns should look like, the BMA added.

And it said CfH had agreed to work with stakeholders to improve support materials designed to help raise public awareness and professional involvement in the programme.

The comments follow criticism of the summary care records programme from some doctors.

It is hoped that pharmacists will one day have access to patients' summary care records and a Connecting for health spokesperson stressed that the consent model for patients, allowing them to opt out if they want to, had not been changed.

They said as GPs had always had to upload patients’ information to the records, practices had always needed to be happy before going ahead with the uploads.