If you are receiving care from other healthcare professionals, such as the district nurses, your GP practice can now share access to parts of your medical record. This helps the healthcare professionals treating you, by making sure they have up-to-date information about you.

You will always be asked for your consent before a healthcare professional accesses your record. You can choose not to allow access. If you choose to allow access, the information is only ever shared on a need-to-know basis. Only healthcare professionals who are treating you will be able to see your record.

Your Summary Care Record is a short summary of your GP medical records. It tells other health and care staff who care for you about the medicines you take and your allergies.

All patients registered with a GP have a Summary Care Record, unless they have chosen not to have one. The information held in your Summary Care Record gives health and care professionals, away from your usual GP practice, access to information to provide you with safer care, reduce the risk of prescribing errors and improve your patient experience.

When you are treated away from your usual doctor's surgery, the health care staff there can't see your GP medical records. Looking at your SCR can speed up your care and make sure you are given the right medicines and treatment.

Unless you have opted out of including additional information, your Summary Care Record will also include extra information from your GP record, including:

• health problems like dementia or diabetes
• details of your carer
• your treatment preferences
• communication needs, for example if you have hearing difficulties or need an interpreter

This will help medical staff care for you properly, and respect your choices, when you need care away from your GP practice. This is because having more information on your SCR means they will have a better understanding of your needs and preferences.

The only people who might see your Summary Care Record are registered and regulated healthcare professionals, for example doctors, nurses, paramedics, pharmacists and staff working under their direct supervision. Your Summary Care record will only be accessed so a healthcare professional can give you individual care. Staff working for organisations that do not provide direct care are not able to view your Summary Care Record.

Before accessing a Summary Care Record healthcare staff will always ask your permission to view it, unless it is a medical emergency and you are unable to give permission.

If you do not want to have a Summary Care Record, then please let us know. We will ask you to sign a form to say that you do not want to have a Summary Care Record. You can download this form from the NHS Digital website.