GP practice guide to transferring records into the National Document Repository

Before your records are scanned 

Before your paper Lloyd George records are scanned, it’s important that they are checked for errors, and any errors are corrected.   

When your records have been scanned 

Scanned records must meet the national scanning standard described in the service specification (you will need to sign in to your NHS Futures account to view this link).

Quality check on scanned records 

Once your patient records have been scanned, your scanning supplier will send you an example of a scanned record for you to quality check. This is it to make sure the records have been scanned correctly.  

Check you are ready to transfer files into the NDR

Please contact the PRM team on [email protected] when your Lloyd George records are ready for transfer into the service.  

The transfer process for your digital Lloyd George records may be different depending on where they are stored and who is transferring the records into the service.  

Digital records stored on a USB stick (or other external storage device) 

If the files can be moved off the USB stick: 

1. Move the files from the USB stick to a secure place, such as Sharepoint 
2. The PRM team will arrange for the files to be transferred to the staging bucket via Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).  
3. The record transfer will then follow the process described in the section How we transfer Lloyd George records into the NDR. 

If your files are stored on a USB stick and cannot be moved off it:  

1. Contact the PRM team to let them know you have files on a USB which you’d like to transfer into the NDR.
2. The PRM team will arrange collection of the USB stick or other device by a secure courier service.  
3. It will be transferred to NHS England’s Information Technology Operations Centre (ITOC).  
4. ITOC will move the records stored on the USB stick, or other external device, directly into the AWS staging bucket. 
5. The records will be analysed within the staging bucket to identify: 
   1. which records can be taken in  
   2. if there is a metadata file 
   3. any work that is needed before the records can be taken in
6. The record transfer will then follow the process described in the section How we transfer Lloyd George records into the NDR. 

Digital records stored in Sharepoint 

Contact the PRM team if you have records stored in Sharepoint. We will advise you on how to move the records from Sharepoint into the AWS staging bucket. Your records will then be transferred into the service following the process described in the section How we transfer Lloyd George records into the NDR.  

Digital records stored with a scanning provider 

Your scanning provider will transfer your scanned and digitised Lloyd George records into the NDR by the process described in the section How we transfer Lloyd George records into the NDR. 

Scanning providers should follow the Suppliers guide to transferring documents into the National Document Repository to transfer records.  

Practices or integrated care boards (ICBs) that are transferring records into the NDR 

You will need to follow the Suppliers guide to transferring documents into the National Document Repository to transfer your records into the service. The information in the next section gives you an overview of the process.  

The PRM team works with scanning providers to transfer scanned Lloyd George records into the NDR. Scanning providers are third party suppliers who provide scanning services directly to GP practices.  

Integrated care boards (ICBs), Commissioning Support Units (CSUs) and GP practices can also transfer scanned records directly into the NDR.  In this section, any organisation transferring records into the service will be referred to as ‘the data transferer’  

Standards for scanned data  

Data transferers are expected to follow the national scanning standard described in the service specification when scanning paper Lloyd George records.   

Records that will be accepted into the NDR  

Records will be accepted into NDR when the patient’s NHS number and two out of three patient details (first name, last name, any previous names and date of birth) in the filename match the data held for the patient in the Personal Demographic Service (PDS).  

We will transfer all the records held for your practice into the NDR. This includes any patients that: 

• are deceased
• are suspended
• are restricted
• have left your practice since their record was scanned

The record transfer process

The PRM team uses a secure and managed Amazon Web Services (AWS) Transfer Family to validate, virus check and transfer scanned records into the NDR.  

Records are transferred into the service by giving the data transferer access to AWS Transfer Family and removing this access once the transfer is finished. 

Sharing the public key 

The NDR uses SSH (Secure Shell) keys for bulk uploads. SSH keys are authentication credentials used in file transfer tools. They help control access and keep data secure. The data transferer will generate the SSH keys and share the public key with the PRM team via email to [email protected].   

Moving files into the NDR 

The data transferrer transfers the files into a secure ‘staging bucket’. For security reasons, data is not transferred outside of the staging bucket whilst a scanning provider is connected to it and when transfers are taking place. The data transferer only has access to the staging bucket and not any secondary areas the data is moved to from there.   

Files in the staging bucket are checked for viruses and undergo validation checks before being moved into the NDR.  

We will let you know when your records are going to be transferred into the service and how long this is likely to take.  

After your records have been transferred into the service, you will receive three reports from us: 

Success report

Information about all Lloyd George records that were successfully ingested into the NDR. Use this report to update your records.  

Rejection report

Information about all Lloyd George records that were not successfully transferred into the NDR. See the section on resolving record rejections.  

The Lloyd George Summary Report  

This report shows: 

• the NHS numbers of all patients registered at your practice who have a record in the service 
• the total number of records stored in the service for your practice  

After transfer, there may be records that we’ve not been able to transfer into the NDR. The rejection report tells you which records were rejected and why they were rejected. 

The following table gives an overview of the main reasons for rejections and how to correct them:

The data transferer will upload the corrected files to the staging bucket. The PRM team will move the corrected records from the staging bucket into the service from at the next bulk upload ingestion cycle.

If you need further support with managing your rejected records, contact the PRM team on [email protected].

We will let you know when your records have been transferred into the NDR and are available to view in the service. Information on accessing and using the service is available in our help and guidance pages.

After your Lloyd George records have been successfully transferred into the NDR, follow your usual process for managing a new patient record.

You may want to add a note into each patient’s EHR that their Lloyd George record can be found in the NDR. To do this, use the SNOMED code ‘Lloyd George Record Folder’ 16521000000101.

Destroying your paper records

When your records have been successfully transferred into the NDR, if you want to destroy your paper records, or copies of the digital files, you should seek advice from your ICB. 

There is more information on record destruction in the guidance document Digitisation of Lloyd George records.