One Health and Care
One Health and Care – a new shared care record to improve the care and support you receive
We would like to let you know that the NHS and its partners are in the process of connecting our local computer systems across the Black Country and West Birmingham to offer joined-up health and social care. This will enable better, safer care and treatment for all our patients. I feel this will help us provide even better care for patients at Probert Road Surgery and I am looking forward to using the new system.
As a GP, it is sometimes time consuming to provide joined-up care with our partners, with so many separate systems handling patient information. Previously, these did not talk to each other, meaning you often had to repeat your story each time you received care at a different organisation, or with a different health professional. One Health and Care is a digital shared care record that will make up-to-date information immediately available to professionals caring for you as a patient, whenever you need direct care.
For instance, a doctor in a hospital Emergency Department (A&E) will be able to confidentially access the same information your GP can. For emergency treatment in particular, the hospital doctor will be able to make better-informed decisions which can potentially have lifesaving benefits for the patient.
Robust security measures are in place to protect your health information and all staff must follow the law on keeping your information confidential.
One Health and Care is a local initiative to share information with organisations for direct patient care, only for use by those directly involved in your health and social care, for the sole purpose of ensuring that you receive prompt and appropriate treatment when you need it.
As this new system is for direct provision of care to patients, it is not covered by any previous national data opt-outs, so currently all patients will be able to benefit from this new initiative.
If you want to find out more about One Health and Care, including how to object if you prefer not to be included, please visit www.one-health-care.net in the first instance.
Dr Mittal