South London and Maudsley will provide better, quicker, and safer care with the London Care Record
Chief Digital Information Officer Dr Zöe Keddie explains what the London Care Record means for service users and colleagues and how our Trust is using digital innovation to provide better care.
This week, South London and Maudsley is the first mental health trust to share information with other health and care providers across the capital as part of the London Care Record.
The London Care Record is a single, secure view of a person’s health and care information to support the delivery of better, quicker, and safer treatment.
Since March 2023, we have been sharing information across southeast London but now our Trust is joining forces with the five London integrated care systems (ICS) and other care providers close to the city, including in Milton Keynes, Hertfordshire, and West Essex, to support patients whenever and wherever they access the health and care services.
What does this mean for you?
Sharing key information such as previous appointments, prescribed medicines, allergies, test results, clinical letters, care plans, and discharge summaries, will enable our health and care colleagues across London to make better informed, timely decisions to provide quicker and safer care, which is especially important in emergency situations and out of hours.
This means, for example, that if a patient who lives in Lewisham attends A&E in north London, their records are accessible to healthcare staff. Staff might then be able to see that in the past the person has received treatment from an addictions service and has recently received results from some blood tests. As a result, they can avoid potentially unnecessary tests and referrals, prescribe medicines safely and accurately, and reduce unneeded admissions to hospital.
The London Care Record will enable health and care providers to better understand the background of each person they are treating, to save time, resources and facilitate timely, safe, personalised care.
Protecting privacy
Of course, we recognise the importance of privacy and data protection, so only health and care professionals who are directly involved in a person’s care will be able to access their information. Similarly, everyone has a right to opt-out of sharing data if they do not want their details available on the London Care Record.
Next steps
I’m pleased that our Trust is using digital innovation to improve our services and provide integrated care across London. This phase will unite colleagues from primary care, hospitals, the London Ambulance Service, universal care plans, Ortus-iHealth cardiac monitoring and NHS 111 services. Our ambition for the future is to enable access and data sharing with community pharmacies and we’re eagerly awaiting the results of a pilot with 10 care homes in northwest London.
As a result of the London Care Record, our Trust will deliver on NHS-wide ambitions for mental health by delivering improved access to high-quality care, better integrated services and earlier interventions.
Dr Zöe Keddie, Chief Digital Information Officer
