Patient Access to Records (PAR)

The changes make up part of a programme for accelerating patient online access. It aims to automatically allow people over 16 to see newly added information entered into their health record. This will include the clinicians notes from appointments, test results and letters, all viewable from the NHS App, NHS website, or another online primary care service (Such as SystmOnline).

While we fully support the principle of increasing access for everyone and recognise the potential benefits for both our team and our patients, we also recognise the additional risks that the change brings, and before this change is enabled automatically for everyone, we want to ensure it’s safe.

We have carefully considered advice from ​​​​​​​Devon Local Medical Committee (Devon LMC), British Medical Association (BMA), General Practitioners Committee (GPC England) and Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) as well as other national bodies and we have made the difficult decision to delay this change for our practice. This is partly due to technical complications within national systems, and partly as we need to prioritise GP time to patient appointments rather than reviewing records.

Preparations are continuing as we work towards making this change safe and to allow you to access this information, and we look forward to offering this service as soon as we are able to minimise the risks to our patients. We continue to review online access for each of our patients and assess safety on an individual basis and we want to express our sincere thanks to all of our patients for their understanding.

This is a programme we want to be involved in, however providing direct care for patients is always our priority.

Reviews are continuing to take place on an individual basis as our doctors are able, however we understand you might have wanted access sooner and we thank you for your patience.

You can still apply for Online Access through our normal process, or by submitting a Subject Access Request here.

When your review is being completed, your doctor may need to talk to you about your circumstances and to make sure that access is safe and of benefit to you. There might be some sensitive information on your record, so you should talk to your doctor during this time if you have any concerns.

Some of our patients have already told us they do not want to see their health records. This is a personal choice and you are able to change your mind if your circumstances change.

Please contact us if you think you might struggle to keep your record private, if you are concerned about sensitive information which may be held within your record or if you would prefer not to have access to your online record.

If you do not want an online account, you can still access your health records by submitting a Subject Access Request here.