Patients

What is the Devon and Cornwall Care Record?

Have you noticed that when you visit the hospital or your GP surgery, you often have to answer the same questions about your health?

This is because health and social care organisations record and store patient information in their own individual systems, and it isn’t always shared.

The Devon and Cornwall Care Record will solve this problem by bringing together this data together and presenting it as a single record.

For instance, imagine that you’ve attended an emergency department with an injury in the morning and been told to see your GP in the afternoon. Under the new system, the GP will be able to see what happened to you in the emergency department by the time they see you in the afternoon.

Most regions already have similar systems in place. And, as a result of sharing information between different health and care teams, these systems have produced numerous benefits.

How will patients benefit?

The Devon and Cornwall Care Record is an essential part of wider transformation of health and care across the region.

Having access to patients’ overall health and medical history will help health professionals identify problems more effectively and make quicker diagnoses.

They’ll be able to see what medication patients are taking, what they’ve taken in the past and if they have any allergies. As well as making treatment safer, this will provide patients with greater continuity of care.

The improved administration will save staff time chasing down information and spare patients the frustration of having to repeat themselves to different care professionals.

The DCCR is also used occasionally to support clinical trials to ensure that your participation in a trial is safe and care is effective and also clinical research that you have consented to participate in.

Who’s involved?

There are more than 760 health and care providers in Devon and Cornwall and, potentially, they can all can participate in the programme. These organisations include:

• 180 GP practices
• 5 acute trusts
• 2 mental health trusts
• 4 local authority providers
• 1 social enterprise
• 557 care homes
• 9 private hospitals
• 1 ambulance trust
• 5 hospices
• 2 out-of-hours providers

If you’d like to know if a health or social care provider (your GP practice, for instance) is participating in the programme, you should be able to find out by looking at the privacy notice on their website. Or you can contact them directly to find out.

You can also look at the list of participating organisations on this website. However, because new organisations are being added all the time it’s best to check directly with your provider.

What data will be used?

Decisions about the use of your data often originate from governmental directions and plans like e.g. the need for all patients in the UK to be accessible through a Shared Care Record System to allow the improvement of care individuals receive. By law, organisations also have to go through a strict process of defining why information is required, why it will be used in a certain way and assess the data protection impact on individuals and communities.

Every single risk will be documented, assessed, defined and mitigated. If risks remain high the law dictates organisations to contact the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) which is the regulator for the use of personal data in the UK.

Any decisions concerning patient data will go through an organisations governance process including documentation, scrutiny by subject matter experts, consultation with the public (depending on the type of project) and approval of the relevant governance meetings. 

Over time, the Devon and Cornwall Care Record will include a broad range of health and social care data including:

• Health problems
• Diagnoses
• Procedures
• Allergies
• Vital signs
• Medications
• Lab results
• Immunisations
• Radiology data
• Clinical correspondence
• Appointments
• Physical examinations
• Family history
• Health setting visits
• Social history
• Social care record
• Photographs and images

Data Protection Legislation dictates organisations to be accountable for the decisions around the use of personal data. The Devon and Cornwall Care Record holds Accountability information in the form of Policies, Guidance, Procedures, Meeting minutes, Contracts, Agreements, Assessments and other. This is to define the required measures but also to demonstrate compliance with all Data Protection Principles.

You can find out more about how we keep your data safe, who can access your record and how you can object to it being used on the data security and privacy page of this website.

Who leads the project?

The Devon and Cornwall Care Record programme team is made up multiple professional groups across Devon & Cornwall. The team’s key role is to safely implement the programme’s strategy and it reports to the wider digital transformation boards in Devon and Cornwall.