The National Care Record Service (NCRS) provides health and care professionals with free online access to information about their patient, gathered from records across the NHS and Social Care, to use wherever and whenever care is needed.
Like the NHS App for patients, NCRS provides our national workforce with a single interface to launch NHS records and applications including:
-
6 of the 8 Shared Care Records and the remainder due in the next few months
-
GP Summary Care Records and new GP connect documents
-
Child protection information
-
Patients’ reasonable adjustments
1.5 million more routes to records
Our research highlights that most care professionals experience gaps in information, particularly when patients access services outside of their local area. Our mission is to help join up care by significantly scaling access to and sharing of clinical information.
Underpinned by National Record Locator, NCRS helps organisations to communicate the clinical information they hold, for authenticated staff to use when required for onward care. In just 12 months, this has opened 1.5m more routes to patient records.
By combining local systems, shared care records, and national spine services, NCRS delivers a transformed experience for our workforce, supports productivity, and improves patient care.
Access to previously unavailable information
Paramedics can now locate and access information in NCRS that was previously unavailable to them in provider or shared care records. They tell us this is reducing stress and delay and is leading to more confident decisions in time critical situations. Seeing care plans and updated information from across the system is avoiding the need for patients to repeat information or have their choices or care plans ignored. Vital information is reducing avoidable admissions and escalations.
Responding to your data needs
We want to hear from you about the data you most want to see in NCRS.
We are trialling access to GP Connect documents; with plans to add structured data. We are adding the ability for clinicians to launch records, such as shared care records and maternity records directly from NCRS - combining single sign on and third-party systems.
Further work will also improve access for wider professionals, including providing dentists and optometrists tailored views to support how they deliver care - helping staff spend less time searching.
By prioritising adoption of NCRS and NRL today, you can be confident you are adopting a sustainable strategic solution, developed with users and in line with national standards.
Visit our NHS Service Catalogue for more information about these services or talk to our NCRS team about your clinical data sharing requirements here on the NHS Developer Community by responding to this post.