A Message from the Partners at Taw Hill Medical Practice about The Open Project

At Taw Hill Medical Practice we believe that the relationship, which should exist between the primary health care team and the patients who register at the practice for care, should be one of openness and honesty. We are writing to you to let you know about an exciting new project we have been working on and one, which we hope will offer you the chance to become more informed about your healthcare.

What currently happens when you join the practice?
When you join the practice, we have very little of your past medical record immediately available. This is why we rely upon you to tell us about yourself using the registration forms and by attending a New Patient Health Check. When you register, a message is sent electronically to Wiltshire Health Authority to let them know that you have joined us and a request is sent by the Health Authority to your previous practice to obtain your personal medical notes.

These are sent to the health authority by your previous GP and then are sent by special courier directly to us. The time taken for notes to arrive varies considerably (usually weeks or months). Your notes arrive in various formats - mostly handwritten on special NHS cards and some in the form of computer printouts. Before your notes arrive, we keep written and electronic records of your health information, the visits you make, your medication and other such information.

When your personal records arrive from your previous GP, we create a summary and "amalgamate" the old records with those that we have made in the meantime. We increasingly find that the best way to keep your records up to date and immediately accessible to the Healthcare Professionals who you see at the practice, is to keep these in electronic form on our secure medical computer system called EMIS.

Under the provision made by The Data Protection Act, you are perfectly entitled to ask us for access to your electronic and paper medical record. There is normally a charge for access (about £10).

What are we doing at Taw Hill Medical Practice and how could this benefit you?
Well, recent advances in the technology we use means that we can try something a little new. We would like to offer our patients the opportunity to have and take away a copy of their own electronic medical record free of charge. We would like to offer all patients' the opportunity to view it and let us know if what we have gleaned from your notes accurately reflects your past medical history e.g. what operations you may have had / what medication you are on / have tried etc. If there are omissions - please tell us and we will correct them. Similarly if there are entries which you don't think apply to you - let us know and we will discuss them with you.

What about the risk relating to confidentiality?
Patently - as we take the issue of confidentiality very seriously, we cannot allow your medical record to fall into the hands of someone else. Although we may write to you asking if you would like a copy, we therefore would never send your record to you in the post in case it was intercepted or lost!

Parents can make a request for the medical record for their children, however Spouses cannot pick up the medical record for their partners. Our staff at the practice must be totally satisfied that the person collecting their medical record is who they say they are and identification will be asked for before parting with the record.

What benefits might you expect?
We hope that you will gain by being able to view your own medical record and play an important part in ensuring that it is accurate. Government policy encourages us all to be honest and open about what we see as a team approach to your healthcare and we feel that this will make the whole arrangement more transparent for our patients. If you request your electronic health record, you may check it for accuracy (this isn't compulsory if you don't want to!).

You may destroy it or keep it in a safe place. The responsibility for keeping your copy confidential when it has left the practice remains yours. You may like to keep it with you when you travel for example, as it is stored in a readily accessible form ~ virtually any modern computer can read the disk without the need for special software. Some doctors might find the information contained on the disk invaluable particularly if you have a complicated medical history or you are on a number of different medications.

We very much hope that you will take part in this exciting new project.

Yours faithfully

Drs June Morris & Peter Crouch