Great North Care Record expands to include children’s community services

North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust has expanded the services that share data via the Great North Care Record to include children’s community services.

The Great North Care Record, which is powered by Cerner, is used within the north-east to electronically connect patient information across a range of services, such as hospitals, community teams, GPs, social care and mental health services. The hope is that by securely joining up data such as hospital visits, medication records, referrals and letters, patient care will be improved.

The latest organisation to join in with sharing data is North Cumbria children’s community services with the move will helping healthcare professionals and anyone involved in delivering care to children in the area, to better understand a child’s need and ensure they’re working efficiently and able to make informed decisions.

For parents of the young patients, it means that any healthcare professional they come into contact with will have the information they need, without requiring parents to repeat it. Professionals will also be able to minimise any potential delays as much of the information they need will have already been collected and is available to them.

Ian Harrison, head of application delivery at North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Trust said: “Every service across the trust now has access to share data through the Great North Care Record. This is a very exciting achievement for the trust and our patients. The aim now is to look at other data held by the trust and mimic what other trusts are doing across the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care System by sharing more information to help to reduce the need for the patient to keep repeating their medical history every time they see a new clinician.”

The children’s community services are joining all GP practices in the north east and North Cumbria, over 200 other community services, Sunderland City Council plus multiple hospital trusts, including most recently North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust.