So the Summary Care Record is designed to be the essential thing you need to know if you are turning up as a patient somewhere that you haven’t been seen before.

So that may be a GP out-of-hours, it may be an emergency department or just after you have been admitted it would be very helpful for a pharmacist for example to understand the core essential information about you.

At the moment the minimum information is your medications, your allergies and your adverse reactions. So what medicines you are on and what has gone wrong and what things should we not prescribe to you as clinicians.

There is then an option in conjunction with your GP if you would like to add other information which might be what is wrong with me at the moment or for people at the end of their lives to add the care plan the expectation of health providers if they are taken profoundly unwell.

Patients have really demanded this.  It is for a small group of patients potentially. It could be for every body but in whom it is really helpful to have a health service better understand them when they unexpectedly come in.