Note: this page is now out of date, please see our most recent guidance.
Practices have until 5pm today (4th November) to pause the activation of accelerated access to patient records.
If you are not ready to give automatic access, you should contact your clinical system provider by 5pm today to say you do not want access turned on for all patients. You have the right to instruct them to do this as the ‘data controller’ for the patient records. You can then continue to give patients access on a case-by-case basis as they request it, following the completion of any redactions etc. The designated contact emails for system providers are:
- EMIS: aapostpone@emishealth.com
- TPP SystmOne: recordaccess@tpp-uk.com
Practices can also choose to apply the SNOMED code “104” (1364731000000104) to every patient on their list. This prevents the automated script set to run by system providers having any effect on any patient’s record. Batch SNOMED codes can be reversed in EMIS up to 7 days after they are put in place. A practice therefore may choose to “bulk undo” the code before 7 days have passed and simply re-run it each week rather than leave it in place and remove from individual records at a future point. BMA guidance and templates can be found here.
NHS England has advised that prospective access will be provisioned for all patients without the ‘enhanced review indicated’ 104 code at the end of November, regardless of whether any template letters were sent by the relevant practices to the system suppliers. The last NHS England communication can be seen here.