Rt Hon Alistair Burt MP Minister of State for Community and Social Care Department of Health Richmond House 79 Whitehall London SWIA 2NS POCOOOO1002339 Tel: 020 7210 4850 Mr R Brittain Assistant Coroner St Pancras Coroners Court Camley Street 0 2 DEC 2015 London NIC 4PP Dex m &le : Thank you for your letter of 7 October 2015,following the inquest into the death of Edward Gascoigne: Iwas sorry to hear of Mr Gascoigne's death and wish to extend my condolences to his family. This case highlights issues about the sharing of patient information within the NHS. You are rightly concerned about access to patient'_ s GP records by treating clinicians and indicated that you feel that the current system of record sharing in the NHS will pose risks to patient care: It is vital that the effective treatment of patients is underpinned by timely and appropriate transfer of information that follows the patient through the healthcare The current system of sharing GP patient records is via the Summary Care Record (SCR) To date; more than 96% of people in England have had SCRs created and uploaded onto the NHS National Spine; a national infrastructure that stores electronic patient information: SCRs contain information sent electronically from the GP record to be held securely on the National Spine Core data in all SCRs comprises: details of Medications (Long-term, Acute and recently discontinued); known Allergies and Adverse Reactions This information is kept up-to-date in real time. In most SCRs, the Core data also contains the *date of last issue' of medications, which gives an indication of whether the patient is the medication regularly: key system: taking

Department of Health for use by commissioners for all contracts for healthcare services other than primary care). To quote the relevant section: '23.6 Subject to General Condition 21 (Patient Confidentiality, Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Transparency) the Provider must ensure that all Staff involved in the provision of urgent, emergency and unplanned care are able to view Service User clinical information from GP records, whether via the Summary Care Records Service or a locally integrated electronic record system supplemented by the Summary Care Records Service. In addition, NHS England's business plan for 2015/16, which sets out priorities for the coming year; has mandated SCR access for 11l services, 999 services and hospital acute admission areas. To quote from the section, Commitments for redesigning urgent and emergency care services: 'By March 2016 complete information sharing across 1ll, 999 and hospital acute admission areas to at least a minimum of Summary Care Record, including end of life and advanced care plans. Furthermore, NHS England is working with partners to develop a range of tools and guidance to support commissioners and providers in the transformation of urgent and emergency care services. This includes the development of an enhanced summary care record which will enable greater access to patient care plans, including end of life care records, special patient notes and mental health crisis notes [ hope I have reassured you that Government plans for sharing of patient information is a priority for urgent and emergency care and that the current SCR system is designed to improve access to patient'$ GP records so that important and vital patient information is available to all treating clinicians. I am grateful to you for bringing the circumstances of Mr Gascoigne's death to my attention and trust that you find this reply helpful. AL seix Acl(4 ALISTAIR BURT key