The £7.5 million in government funding earmarked for community pharmacy training will be spent on supporting access to the summary care record (SCR), the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) has announced.

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt pledged last week (June 19) that the money would be spent on "appropriate tools" for the sector, and HSCIC said today (June 23) that NHS England had commissioned it to provide all pharmacists and technicians with “secure, approved and monitored access to the SCR”.

Pharmacy minister Alistair Burt confirmed that “up to £7.5 million” would be invested in “giving community pharmacists the training and tools they need to access a patient’s SCR”.

It made “complete sense” to give pharmacists records access “where appropriate”, said Mr Burt. “I encourage all community pharmacists to get involved and further improve the care we can give people in their communities.”

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

HSCIC also published details of its pilot, which granted SCR access to 140 pharmacies over five geographical areas between September 2014 and March 2015. Ninety-two per cent of patient encounters where the SCR was accessed had not required signposting to another NHS care setting, it said.

 

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