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What is the Wessex Care Records programme?
The Wessex Care Records (WCR) programme is a collaboration between the Dorset and Hampshire/Isle of Wight Integrated Care Systems to:
- enable relevant information from patient records to be shared between everyone involved in their care and support across the counties of Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight
- use data and insight from this information to help understand the health of the population to improve services, develop new models of care and prevent ill-health
Doesn’t this happen already?
Relevant patient information is already shared by health and care professionals in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight through the Care and Information Exchange (CHIE) programme and in Dorset through the Dorset Care Records (DCR) programme.
Wessex Care Records will enable records from CHIE and DCR to be shared and used for population management across both systems.
Who is involved in the Wessex Care Records programme?
Wessex Care Records builds on best practice from two similar approaches by the Dorset Care Record (DCR) and the Care and Health Information Exchange (CHIE) in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
The Wessex Care Records programme is not creating a new database but rather improves access to and retrieval of information from patient records in HIOW (held in CHIE) and Dorset (held in DCR).
Is this information secure?
Both CHIE and DCR have robust security and information governance measures in place to keep patient information safe and secure and have done so for a number of years. WCR will have similar measures in place for the retrieval and sharing of records between the two systems.
Patients can only be identified from the information that is shared when it is used for their individual care.
Is this happening nationally?
All 42 Integrated Care Systems in England have some form of Shared Care Record system (similar to CHIE or DCR). Some are already sharing relevant information from patient records (for example in London or Birmingham and the Black Country) and this is being encouraged by the NHS nationally.
Why are you carrying out this research?
The WCR programme will be working with the Dorset and Hampshire/Isle of Wight health and care systems to make sure people across the three counties understand how their health and care information is shared and have confidence that this is done safely and securely. This research will help to inform this future communications and engagement work.
What will you do with the results?
This research will help to inform this future communications and engagement work to make sure people across the three counties understand how their health and care information is shared and have confidence that this is done safely and securely. Headline results from the research will be made available to the public but individual responses will not be shared
Is this an anonymous survey?
Yes the survey is anonymous and individual respondents cannot be identified (unless they choose to share their details because they are happy to take part in future research activities).
Why are you sending a survey to GPs?
Evidence from elsewhere in the UK shows that GPs are the main source of trusted information for patients on how their information is shared.
The WCR programme wants to make sure that GP practices are supported and equipped to keep patients informed about how information from their patient records is shared and answer their questions, so some research is being carried out with GPs to find out how we can best do this.
Is this to do with selling patient information?
No, it is simply about sharing relevant information from patient records across both Dorset and Hampshire/Isle of Wight for patient care and treatment and using insight from these records to improve services, develop new models of care and prevent ill-health.
Is this to do with the recently announced Government ‘Dara Saves Lives’ strategy?
The Government policy is about how data can be used to bring benefits to all parts of health and social care, so it has the same broad ambitions as the Wessex Care Records programme.
However the Wessex Care Records programme is about building on existing practice in Dorset and Hampshire/Isle of Wight so is not directly part of this new Government strategy.