Patient data saves lives: The bigger picture’ by Understanding Patient Data can be reused under the CC BY license
How your health information is used
Health and social care services need to share some of your information so that you can receive the best possible care. This happens in a number of ways – letters, phone calls, fax and through secure email and computer systems. Information in your care record includes things like – details of your medication and treatments, current and previous care, test results and any other relevant care information.
Health and care staff working in south east London - Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark – now have better access to more accurate information, so they can provide safer, faster and more effective care and support.
Two systems have been linked together so that relevant information about you can be safely shared between the staff who need it across the whole of south east London. This means that no matter where you receive care in south east London, the staff looking after you will have the most up-to-date information when they need it.
For example, if you live and Southwark and are receiving treatment from Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust for one condition and King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust for another condition – your records are immediately available to the staff looking after you at both hospitals.
Find out more about information sharing in Lambeth and Southwark http://www.kingshealthpartners.org/localcarerecord
How does this help with my care?
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Reduces delays in your care and treatment.
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Staff can spend more time on your care, rather than administrative tasks.
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Better quality and safety of care.
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Care and treatment you need can be given earlier and closer to home - this stops your condition getting any worse and avoids hospital admissions.
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Care is more joined up so you won’t have to tell your story to lots of different professionals.
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Transfer of care between services is smoother.
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Reduces unnecessary appointments, tests and associated costs.
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Your confidential health records are available to care professionals via a secure online portal rather than relying on post, fax and email.
How are CYPHP improving care through information sharing?
CYPHP are testing new ways of delivering healthcare to children and young people - for example, increasing specialist nursing support to children with certain long term health conditions. We have built secure information sharing into our services so that all professionals involved in a child or young person's care can communicate effectively and work together for the child.
For example, our community nurses are based in our local children's hospitals, but share information through the health systems used in GP practices - as soon as they have seen a child in the community, the information from their visit will be available to the child's GP. This helps everyone to be fully informed about the child's care plan and any treatment they're having.
We will share what we have learned about effective ways to share health information with other local services and programmes to help improve care across Lambeth and Southwark in the long term. And at the same time, we are learning from other local programmes such as the development of the Local Care Record so that we can improve how we work with data within our services.