Emergency Care Summary

What is the Emergency Care Summary?
From October 2005 some of the information in your GP patient record will be made available to improve your care out-of-hours
If you become ill when your doctor’s surgery is closed, you or the person phoning on your behalf may be asked by the out-of-hours nurse or doctor whether they can look up some of the information in your patient record.

This information will cover:
1. Any known allergies you may have
2. The medication you are currently taking

This will help the nurse or doctor treating you to provide the best care possible, even if you are too ill to remember this important information.
The extract from your patient record is called the Emergency Care Summary. Out-of-hours staff will not be able to see your full patient record.
If you do not want any of the nurses or doctors looking after you out-of-hours to see your Emergency Care Summary, please let the Receptionist at your GP Practice know. Please note that withholding this information may mean you are denied an improvement in your care out-of-hours.

Dataset
The ECS contains demographic information and telephone numbers as well as medication and adverse drug reactions. This is usually accurate and up to date, and will be helpful in many OOHs situations. The information is taken from the practice twice a day when any changes are made to the GP electronic record, and can be viewed by clinicians working in OOHs centres.

Security
The ECS is protected in a secure way. Patients can refuse to have their data sent to the store, in addition, every patient will be asked for their consent for the clinician to view their information when seen at the OOHs centre, and practices can check whether their own patient’s records have been viewed.

Patient Information
Patient leaflets have been written to explain the system to patients; these will be available in General Practices and Out of Hours centers. The Scottish Consumer Council has run a series of focus groups to find out what patients think of the project.

Posters will also be issued to General Practices and OOHs centres. So far, feedback has been very positive.