Community pharmacies to gain faster access to SCR

NHS Digital has announced that pharmacists can now access vital patient information quickly and simply through a new Summary Care Record (SCR) 1-click function.

The 1-click function allows pharmacy professionals logged in on their Smartcard to click straight through to a selected patient’s SCR, without having to log in separately and complete a manual search. Having access to a patient’s Summary Care Record speeds up care and reduces the need for phone calls to GP practices, delays to care and the need for referrals to other services, particularly out-of-hours.

This is expected to save time over the course of a day, making access to SCR an integral part of providing pharmacy services, such as medicine use reviews, the new medicines service, administering vaccinations and emergency supply.

Pharmacies can access the Summary Care Record to: check allergies to prevent prescribing errors; check current medications prescribed for emergency supply purposes; and check eligibility for services such as a free flu jab.

Tahmina Rokib, clinical lead for Digital Medicines & Pharmacy at NHS Digital, said: “SCR 1-click will allow pharmacists quicker access to critical information when carrying out community pharmacy advanced services. This is a great first step to integrating core clinical tools into systems to make things more efficient for busy health care professionals.

“It would be great to see integration of SCR and other digital tools by more system suppliers in the future so that clinicians can fully reap the benefits. Improved access to SCR will support pharmacists to provide better and safer care for patients through more informed decision making due to quicker access to information.”

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This story was first published in digitalhealth.net

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