Key information about the Shared Care Record for health and care professionals

About the Mid and South Essex Shared Care Record

People in mid and south Essex are receiving better connected care and safer treatment, thanks to the Shared Care Record. This digital system securely connects essential information from different health and social care records, giving professionals a clearer, more consistent view of a person’s care history. This not only facilitates collaboration between services, but also saves time and enhances the quality and safety of care provided.

Hear from local health and social care professionals what this means for them and the people they care for

Information which is available

The Shared Care Record provides access to selected information – it is not an individual’s full health and care record. Information in the Shared Care Record includes things such as clinical notes, medication details, diagnostic results, treatment histories, allergies, discharge letters, and current conditions, among other crucial information. You can find details about what information is shared by each partner using the data visibility guide on this page.

What it is (and what it isn’t)

The Shared Care Record is designed to provide health and care professionals with seamless, secure access to data by consolidating vital information from the various clinical and care systems used across mid and south Essex. Whether this is from a GP appointment or a hospital admission, data is made available in a structured and easy-to-read format. It’s important to clarify a few things about the Shared Care Record:

• It’s not an electronic patient record (EPR) or digital social care record: These systems allow staff to view, manage, and contribute to a person’s digital health or care record. The Shared Care Record pulls information from those systems into one single place.
• It is a read-only platform: It provides a consolidated view of a person’s information without the capability to alter the data. This means that professionals from other organisations won’t be able to edit the data within your system. In the future, we will be introducing integrated care planning functionality to support collaborative care across services. We will share more details nearer the time.
• It is not the summary care record: Summary care records are electronic medical records created from GP medical records only. A summary care record typically holds information about current medication, allergies, and personal details. A shared care record contains much more information. It brings together data from the various systems used by people involved in an individual’s care.
• It doesn’t replace other existing systems: The Shared Care Record doesn’t aim to replace other platforms or systems you might use – it’s an additional tool to support health and care professionals in providing better care.
• It is exclusively for professionals: This system can only be accessed by health and care professionals. Patients/residents will not have access to the Shared Care Record.

Objectives and key benefits

By seamlessly sharing health and social care data from multiple systems, we aim to create a more efficient, safer, and person-centred environment for care delivery. Specifically, we can:

• Enable safer treatment: By providing professionals with instant access to essential data such as medications and allergies, even when patients can’t recall these details themselves.
• Support emergency response: Allowing access to a person’s medical history or details such as their next of kin can be lifesaving in emergencies, enabling faster diagnosis and treatment.
• Enhance person-centred care: By consolidating data, we reduce the need for people to repeat their history across different organisations. This gives professionals a more holistic view of each person’s health and social care journey.
• Support informed and timely decisions: Professionals will have 24/7 access to a person’s recent history, including tests and scans, facilitating informed, real-time decision-making – anytime, anywhere.
• Save time and reduce administrative burden: By centralising key information, we free up professionals to focus on care delivery and achieve time and cost savings.
• Ensure care continuity: As people move between different health and social care services, shared care records enable smoother transitions, improving the care experience and maintaining consistency in care quality.

Who’s involved

Once fully rolled out, the Shared Care Record will include the following partners from the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System:

• East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST)
• Essex County Council
• Essex Partnership University Trust (EPUT)
• Farleigh Hospice
• GP practices and PCNs within mid and south Essex
• Havens Hospices
• Hamelin Trust
• IC24
• Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board (MSE ICB)
• Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust (MSEFT)
• North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT)
• Provide CIC
• Southend-on-Sea City Council
• St Francis Hospice
• St Luke’s Hospice
• Thurrock Council

Rolling out the Shared Care Record

Since launching in August 2024, the Shared Care Record has grown to include more organisations and additional information across mid and south Essex. Some partners are now contributing data and enabling access for their teams, while others only view information shared by others.

For the latest updates, you can view the roadmap.

How we’ve prioritised what data to include

While the system is accessible by all health and care professionals within your organisation, the first phase prioritised the integration of data which is most needed for frailty and complex adult care. This is because with complex needs often receive care from multiple organisations across the integrated care system.

This targeted strategy allows for the efficient allocation of resources, maximising immediate benefits for both residents and providers. This approach has been collaboratively agreed upon with our partners to prioritise the integration of datasets that are most crucial for these particular care pathways.

Training

To ensure you are well-equipped to use the Shared Care Record, a series of training materials have been developed. These resources include comprehensive training videos and quick reference guides, designed to help you become proficient with the system’s functionalities. You can access training materials here.

Support and troubleshooting

For any issues or queries regarding the Shared Care Record, please refer to the following support routes:

• Technical and data issues: If you encounter any technical issues with the Shared Care Record or notice any problems with data, please contact your organisation’s IT service desk in the usual way. They will guide you on the necessary steps to resolve the issue and ensure the information is updated accordingly.
• Information governance (IG) enquiries: For any IG queries or to register when a patient objects to their information being shared, please reach out to your organisation’s IG team. Their contact details can usually be found on your staff intranet.
• General enquiries: For general questions and comments, please search your organisation’s intranet for ‘Shared Care Record’. If you cannot find the information you need, please contact [email protected] for further assistance.

Accessing the Shared Care Record

The Shared Care Record is accessible via your own clinical/care system when you open the record for a person in your care. This means you won’t need a separate logon or password to access the Shared Care Record when viewing a person’s details within your own system. It also means that you won’t need to search again for a person’s record. This aims to make the transition as smooth, efficient, and secure as possible for all professionals involved in person’s care. You can view guides on accessing the Shared Care Record.

It may be necessary for some professionals to log in directly to the Shared Care Record. These individuals will be contacted by their organisation with login details.

Role-based access control (RBAC)

Access permissions for the Shared Care Record are determined by the role-based access control established within each participating organisation. This means that if you are authorised to view certain types of health or care information within your current system, you will have corresponding level of access within the Shared Care Record. This approach ensures that professionals only have access to the relevant information they are authorised to see, which is essential for carrying out their care responsibilities effectively and securely.

Patient/resident access

The Shared Care Record is not a patient portal. It does not allow patients/residents to access their own information. Details on how patients can securely access parts of their personal health information can be found on our Digital Patient Portal.

Data security

The Shared Care Record adheres to the highest standards of data protection and confidentiality. Information is only accessible through a secure IT system, and rigorous safeguards are in place to prevent unauthorised access.

All records are strictly confidential and can only be accessed by health and social care professionals who are directly involved in an individual’s care. We are using role-based access control (RBAC), meaning that people can only see certain level of information based on their professional role.

The Shared Care Record is accessed over a secure network, and data will not be stored outside of secure systems. Visit the My Care Record website to find out more about how and why health and care data is shared for direct care purposes. My Care Record is the name of our approach to data sharing, and is not specific to an individual system.

Information governance

The Shared Care Record is a read-only platform that offers an aggregated view of a person’s health and care information across multiple systems. While it consolidates data for easier access and reference, it does not allow users to modify the original records held in individual systems.

Each participating organisation retains controllership of its own records because this is a read-only system. This ensures not only that professionals from other organisations cannot edit your data, but also maintains standard of data quality and integrity.

Individuals objecting to data sharing

The Shared Care Record is for direct care and will not be used for planning or research purposes. Therefore, opt-outs received for national data programmes such as the General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GP DPR) do not apply to the Mid and South Essex Shared Care Record.

Objections to sharing data for direct care are recorded in GP clinical systems separately to opt-outs for national secondary use. If you have questions about recording patient preferences on your clinical system, please speak to your IT service provider. For any IG queries or to register when a patient objects to their information being shared, please reach out to your organisation’s IG team.

Audit requirements for the Shared Care Record

The audit requirements for the Shared Care Record depend on the access model agreed upon by partner organisations. It’s important to note that additional auditing is required where partners have staff members that are using the web portal as this involves direct access to the Shared Care Record and is not done through existing clinical/care systems. The information governance leads within each partner organisation work with their operational teams to ensure that auditing is carried out to provide the required level of assurance to the public and partner organisations.

Clinical safety

Clinical safety of the Shared Care Record is a paramount concern for all involved. We have a designated Clinical Safety Officer for the programme who is actively collaborating with colleagues from each partner organisation to ensure we have robust clinical risk management in place. This meticulous oversight aims to mitigate any risks that could arise from sharing outdates, incorrect or incomplete data, thereby ensuring that health and care professionals can rely on the Shared Care Record for safe and effective care. If you’d like to speak with us about clinical safety, you can contact us at [email protected]

Integration with existing systems

Information within the Shared Care Record is available via a secure IT system and can be accessed by different care providers regardless of the computer software programmes they use.

The Shared Care Record contains both structured data (such as numbers and dates) and unstructured data (such as free-form text and documents). To incorporate the necessary health and social care information, some data is stored in the data and document repositories of the Shared Care Record system provided by Orion Health. This system operates on dedicated infrastructure, which is fully approved and compliant with international standards for processing and storing protected health information.

Outbound connectivity is essential for integrating the Shared Care Record system with the IT systems used by health and social care organisations in mid and south Essex. It involves establishing secure, industry-standard network connections between the different IT systems. These connections ensure seamless data transfer and system interoperability, while adhering to the network security standards of each participating organisation. This approach not only enhances functionality but also maintains the integrity and security of the data being shared.

In most cases, data will be relayed to the Shared Care Record directly from the original record and up-to-date information is instantly available. The information is refreshed each time you re-open the record. For technical reasons, some record systems cannot connect directly and will send information to the Shared Care Record in a regular periodic way.

Understanding terms used on this page

For clarity on the terminology used on this page, please refer to our Shared Care Record: glossary of terms and acronym log. This resource provides definitions and explanations for the specific terms and acronyms related to the Shared Care Record programme. Should you come across any terms on this page that are not immediately clear, the glossary will be a useful reference. We welcome your suggestions for any additions to this glossary, which can be sent to [email protected]