Stakeholder briefing June 2026

The Devon and Cornwall Care Record (DCCR) is a system that transforms the way information is shared among health and care organisations in Devon and Cornwall; it enables authorised health and care staff to see details held by a wide range of providers across Devon, Cornwall and the Isle of Scilly in a single record. Professionals benefit with a more complete view of a patient’s history and it is part of a national programme.

Electronic treatment escalation plan (eTEP)

The number of eTEPs in the system continues to grow and there are now 50,515 – up from 35,000 in January 2026. Access by South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) also continues to increase, providing a tangible benefit to both the patients and the system as a whole by reducing the number of unwanted admissions and conveyances.

The project in Cornwall is progressing, and the intention is for the system to be live in Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT) during July 2026.

To support this, the DCCR team are making sure that GP practices in Cornwall who wish to participate are fully operational. They are also engaging with care homes and other stakeholder organisations.

For additional information on the eTEP project in Cornwall, contact Phil Annal at phil.annal@nhs.net.

Integrated personal care and support planning

Devon and Cornwall ICB’s are working with Gloucester ICB and Derby ICB to build an integrated Personalised Care and Support Plan into the DCCR.

A number of workshops with a cross section of practitioners have already taken place and the phase 1 design for the following elements are now complete:

• About Me
• Care and Support Plan
• Contingency Plan
• Mental Capacity Assessment
• Advanced Care Plan
• Children’s Advanced Care Plan (including neo natal)
• End of Life Care Plan

Please note that this is phase 1 and there will be an opportunity to make adjustments following operational use.

The plan for rollout requires a number of upgrades to our system (see below) and it is anticipated that this will be available for operational use by September, although this is not to say that the system will implemented in September. The rollout will be subject to detailed operational planning.

Cornwall are likely to be the early adopters of the solution, and the project is being integrated into the wider Neighbourhood work being led by Phil Annal.

Phase 2 has now commenced to design a frailty assessment. Thank you to colleagues who have already contributed to the design.

Stakeholder news

The number of partner organisations continue to rise as the benefit of the DCCR is seen and additional information is made available to practitioners.

We do still have some signatories of the Date Sharing Agreement who are not fully live and if there is anything we can do to assist, please contact the DCCR team (the e-mail is below).

A full list of participating organisations can be found on the website and organisations who are not already signed up but wish to participate can e-mail rcht.dccrsupport@nhs.net and you will be contacted with information about how to engage with the programme.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA)

In the last bulletin we mentioned that MFA was in place for the support team, and we were hoping to have this rolled out for all internet connected organisations using the Portal by late summer, but unfortunately this has been delayed.

However, the upgrade that was the key dependency has now taken place, and we will shortly be contacting Internet connected organisations that are using the portal with information about how this will work. This will not apply to Launch in Context users, or partners that utilise the secure Health and Social Care Network (HSCN) connection.

Once this is fully embedded, we will also resurrect the plan to provide access via mobile devices. There is no definitive timescale yet.

Electronic Patient Record (EPR) go-lives

Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust (TSDFT), University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (UHP) and Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT) are all in the process of implementing new Electronic Patient Record (EPR) systems. For Devon this is Epic, and for Cornwall this is Oracle Millennium.

As these organisations have connections to the DCCR, we need to undertake some work to ensure that these connections continue to work following the respective go-lives.

As part of this, we will also be looking to increase the amount of information available in the DCCR – especially for Cornwall. As opportunities materialise, we will provide updates through this bulletin.

System upgrade

The DCCR has now been upgraded to Clinical Portal version 8.14.

This has been a significant update in preparation for some future enhancements, and we are aware that this required a significant amount of downtime and we apologise for any inconvenience. We do try and do these out of hours, but for many services this isn’t always possible due to their nature.

The update is mainly related to what could be described as back-end functions, although for this update there is a new timeline filter available in the dashboard. There is a new ‘How To’ guide on the training pages of the website.

Support

With the increase in partner organisations, the work associated with testing the upgrade and a significant increase in the number of users for RCHT, the support team has established some additional resource. This is currently on a fixed-term basis, but we will review this in the future if the demand remains high.

If you have any feedback for the support team, complaints or compliments, please contact the DCCR support team leader Hannah Sprague on hannah.sprague@nhs.net.

For user support or general enquiries, you can reach the DCCR Support Team by e-mail, Monday to Friday between 8am to 5pm. rcht.dccrsupport@nhs.net.

Information governance

Recent audits have highlighted a small number of occasions where individuals have searched for their own records. Following further investigation, this was found to be for testing and demonstration purposes.

Additional guidance has been developed, and we have a test patient available for use in the Live system. The NHS number is 999 000 0174 and can be searched for by Portal users.

For Launch in Context users, the test patient needs to be set up in the line of business system, such as TPP SystmOne or EMIS, and then mirrored in the DCCR.

We have already done this for a number of organisations and if your organisation would like us to set up a test patient, please contact the support team via email: rcht.dccrsupport@nhs.net.

Training

As we continue to add training material to our website we welcome any suggestions from users as to any additional information that would be useful to: rcht.dccrsupport@nhs.net.

Our training site can be found here: Training – Devon and Cornwall Care Record

A message from Clive

I have been the programme manager since the inception of the DCCR five years ago and left the programme at the beginning of April 2026 to retire from the NHS after 35 years.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people, including Orion Health, who have contributed in so many ways to make the programme a success as we have made the journey from a system with a handful of users to one with nearly 60,000 users.

The programme has not always been plain sailing and it has had its challenges, but I can say that we have learned a lot over the years and looking forward there are some amazing opportunities on the horizon, including the integrated personal care and support plan work, further integration with the National Record Locator and the NHS App, mobile access and the potential to contribute to the National Single Patient Record, to name a few.

At present there is no direct replacement for me so for now please direct all queries to the DCCR e-mail address: rcht.dccrsupport@nhs.net.

Clive Taylor