BMA calls for halt to SCR uploads

BMA GP representatives are calling on the government to halt the uploading of any more Summary Care Records while a review of the programme takes place.

More than 300,000 SCRs have been created since health minister Simon Burns wrote to the BMA last month pledging to review the process for informing patients about SCRs and the content of summary records.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, a Harrow GP and one of the BMA GP committee’s negotiators with a lead role on IT, said no more records should be uploaded until the review had reached its conclusions.

He told EHI Primary Care: “It’s incongruous of the minister to say the process needed to be reviewed and then for uploads to continue.

"We believe that there are some real concerns with the SCR and that we need to time to reflect on them and think about the best way forward. There is nothing to be gained by pushing on with something that needs review.”

Dr Nagpaul said it would also be a “total injustice” is full consideration was not given to the report from the independent evaluation of the SCR programme carried out by University College, London and published last month.

He added: “I think this will be a test for the government to live up to their own rhetoric about giving clinicians a real voice in the way the NHS is run.”

Following the announcement of the review the Department of Health said new Public Information programmes about the SCR would be ‘paused’ but uploads of records relating to patients already informed about the SCR would continue.

Just under 30m patients have so far been informed about the SCR programme through a PIP but the BMA argues that many patients remain unaware that a summary of their records will be uploaded to a national database unless they opt-out.