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Shared Care Record Achieves a First for Adding NHS Trust Data

Health and care professionals are now able to see even more details about the people they are caring for with a new landmark achieved by the Yorkshire and Humber Care Record (YHCR).

The Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust (RDaSH) has gone live with adding patient information regarding community and mental health services into the YHCR.

This is the first time that ‘SystmOne’ community and mental health data has been added into the YHCR by a South Yorkshire NHS Trust. Information available now within the shared care record from RDaSH includes medical record summaries, clinical reports, appointments and medication. It is planned that other Trusts using SystmOne in the region will start providing the same data into the YHCR within the next few weeks and months.

The YHCR brings together people’s separate records into a structured format. This gives health and care professionals directly involved in an individual’s care a more complete view of the care and treatment that an individual has received across all services. The IT platform securely connects records from hospitals, GPs, mental health services and social care providers, ensuring professionals have the most up-to-date information when they need it.

Katie Dowson, programme director of the South Yorkshire Shared Care Record programme, which is delivering the YHCR, said: “The more patient data we have in the YHCR, the more useful it becomes to health and care staff directly involved in people’s care. It has been great to work with everyone at RDaSH in this significant achievement and we look forward to more Trusts replicating this advance in due course.”

Josh Gillespie, who works as a social work apprentice in the City of Doncaster Council’s Integrated Discharge Team, which helps support people to leave hospital and return home or to community settings, said: “The addition of the SystmOne non-GP data makes this shared care record even more useful. I can see the information broken down by services and it’s quicker than ever before to navigate to the information I need. It’s better than what we’ve had access to before and will make a real difference to our team.”

The YHCR is being rolled out via the SYSCR programme, part of the national Connecting Care Records initiative. Currently, there are 13 local NHS organisations and local authorities, as well as all GP practices, involved in advancing the programme in South Yorkshire, across the Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield areas.