The Lincolnshire Care Record is a secure computer system that provides health and care staff with a selected view of a patient’s personal information contained in different health and care systems.

At the moment, every health and social care organisation that you use has a different set of patient or service user records for you. These records may duplicate information or one record might hold information about your treatment, care and support that another one doesn’t. To provide the best care to you as a patient or service user it is essential that health and social care professionals have access to the most up-to-date information.

The care record brings together selected patient information from multiple organisations and systems in real time. It can also notify users when relevant events occur as well as providing secure communication between care providers.

The organisations that are currently taking part in the programme are local health and care services:

• Primary Care (GP Practices and Primary Care Networks across Lincolnshire)
• Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS)
• Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT)
• United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT)
• Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) - Social Workers and Adult Social Care
• St Barnabas Hospice (Lincoln)
• East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS)

Health and care organisations that are in the areas of Peterborough (North West Angila Foundation Trust) will also be able to view your information for the purpose of giving you direct care should it be necessary.

You don’t need to do anything. For anyone who is registered with a GP in Lincolnshire, the change is taking place automatically as we now switch on the Lincolnshire Care Record across the organisations taking part in the programme. We’ll update the list of organisations over time to reflect any changes that may take place.

As we now have the capability to include the details of people under the age of 18, their records will also be available for health and social work professionals to view through the care record.

Your GP practice can choose not to take part in the Lincolnshire Care Record programme. If that is the case for your practice, the information in your GP records will not be available for other health and social work professionals to view through the care record. Please check with your GP practice if you would like to know whether it is taking part.

The benefits to you include:

• not having to repeat your details every time you need care
• better and, potentially, faster treatment as the professionals caring for you will be able to quickly see your records and make sure your care is coordinated to support you as effectively as possible
• clinicians being able to see what medications you’re taking, what you’ve taken in the past, and if you have any allergies – making your treatment safer
• not having to repeat any tests unnecessarily

The Lincolnshire Care Record provides a view of selected personal information about each patient or service user so that whenever you are being treated or cared for by the NHS or social care services the people looking after you will have the most up-to-date information.

Examples of the information that could be included are:

• Address and telephone number – so we have one set of contact details for you.
• Diagnosis list – to make sure your health or social care professional has a complete record of your care.
• Allergies – to make sure you aren’t prescribed or given any medicines you could have an adverse reaction to.
• Test results – to speed up your treatment and care.
• Referrals, clinic letters and discharge information – to make sure the people caring for you have all the information they need about treatment you are having.

Yes, you have the right to opt out at any time if you are 16 years of age or older.

From the age of 13 to 16, we will consider your right to opt out if your form has been signed on your behalf by someone with parental responsibility.

If it has not, we will ask a recognised health or social work professional if they consider you to be competent to make such a decision.

We don’t recommend opting out, as information that could be vital when you need health or social care support – for instance, during a visit to a hospital emergency department – might not be immediately to hand as a result.

If all relevant health and social care professionals do not have access to the most appropriate information it could affect your care.

However, the decision is entirely yours. If you do want to opt out, you will need to complete an Opt Out Form.

If you have already opted out previously but would like to opt-in, please complete our Opt In Form.

If you’re unsure about anything, or have any questions we haven’t answered in our FAQs, please email us