Managing records in the service

When a new patient registers at your practice, you might receive a digital Lloyd George note from the previous practice to tell you that their Lloyd George record is in the National Document Repository (NDR). If you do not receive a digital Lloyd George note for a newly registered patient, their record might still be in the NDR, but the note was not sent by the previous practice. 

When the patient’s registration is complete, the Personal Demographics Service (PDS) will update the ODS code on their record and you will be able to access their record in the service.  

If the patient's Lloyd George record is stored in the service, you may want to add a note or a code to the patient’s EHR to flag that it is there. 

If you can’t find your new patient’s record within the NDR, this may be because:

You will be sent their paper Lloyd George record. You will need to arrange with your ICB or scanning supplier to have it transferred into the service. 

If a patient has moved abroad and requests access to their record, this request must go to PCSE who will be able to access the record. 

You won’t be able to view a patient’s record in the NDR if they don’t have an active registration at your practice.  NHS England are the data controller of patient records where there is no active registration, and PCSE can access and manage these records.   

You don’t need to do anything with the record of a suspended patient. When the patient registers at a new practice, the ODS code will be updated and the new practice will be able to access their record in the service. 

You can access the records of deceased patients in this service. To do this:

1. Enter the patient's NHS number in the 'Search for a patient' page

2. You will see an advisory notice in the 'Patient details page' to tell you that you are requesting access to the record of a deceased patient, and that you will need to give a reason why you need to access the record:

3. On the next page, you will be asked to give your reasons for accessing the record. Select all the reasons that are relevant, or enter a reason in the box provided and select 'Continue to the record':

4. You will be taken to the Lloyd George record for the deceased patient, and you will be able to view, download or remove the record. 

The scanning standard requires that all pages of a patient’s Lloyd George record are scanned and transferred into the service, and that blank pages are not deleted. This is to ensure the integrity, quality and consistency of scanned and digitised records. This means that you may come across blank pages within a patient’s digital Lloyd George record. You may also find a digitised Lloyd George record within the service that only consists of a cover note. 

It is not currently possible for you to upload individual Lloyd George records to the service, or to add files to a patient record already stored in the service. We are working on making this functionality available in the future.  

If you receive paper records for new patients, you will need to arrange with your ICB or scanning supplier to have them transferred into the service. 

You cannot redact a record within the service. To redact a record, you will need to use your usual method of redaction. 

If you have found patient information stored within the wrong record, please contact us by emailing [email protected].