Your Medical Record

Sharing your medical record

Increasingly, patient medical data is shared for example, between GP surgeries and district nursing, hospital and other secondary care providers in order to give clinicians access to the most up-to-date patient information.

The systems we operate require that any sharing of medical information is consented to by patients beforehand. Patients must consent to sharing of the data held by a health provider out to other health providers and must also consent to which of the other providers can access their data.

For example, it may be necessary to share data held in GP practices with district nurses, but the local podiatry department would not need to see it to undertake their work. In this case, patients would allow the surgery to share their data, they would allow the district nurses to access it, but they would not allow access by the podiatry department. In this way access to patient data is under patients' control and can be shared on a 'need to know' basis.

Accessing your medical records and booking appointments online

You can access key parts of your medical record

• Using the NHS app, including test results and request medications
• Or you can access your records online.

John Hopkins patient need groups

The Johns Hopkins patient need group score shown on your record is part of a national NHS programme. It helps GP practices understand what level of care patients may need.

Giving patients a group helps make sure:

• The right patient is seen
• By the right clinician
• At the right time

Instead of focusing on one medical condition, the system groups patients based on how complex their overall healthcare needs are.

Your group is automatically calculated using information already in your medical record, such as:

• Health conditions
• Test results
• Prescriptions
• Recent hospital or GP care

This group:

• Is not a diagnosis
• Does not change your access to treatment
• Is only used to help the NHS plan services better

Your group may change only if your health changes significantly, for example:

• You develop a new long-term condition
• An existing condition becomes better or worse
• Your overall health improves or declines

Please don’t worry about the group you are in, as it is calculated using a standard national system that is applied consistently to everyone. This does mean we are unable to change the group on your record.

 Importantly, whatever group you are in, it will not affect the care you receive from us.