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GP Connect Access Record

GP Connect Access Record makes patient medical information available to all appropriate clinicians when and where they need it to support direct care and to medical examiners for the statutory purpose of reviewing deaths, leading to improvements in both care and outcomes. 

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GP Connect Access Record is a suite of three products that allows authorised clinicians to access GP patient records held on their practice system:

  • Access Record: HTML enables a read-only view of a patient’s record. The record can be viewed within another care setting including another GP practice, an urgent care call centre, or an acute care organisation via an accredited system or application.
  • Access Record: Structured provides access to a patient’s record in a machine-readable, structured, and coded format. Structured data allows the consuming system to import and process patient data in to best support patients and the healthcare professionals treating them. GP Connect does not place any restrictions on how data is processed providing the data is only used for direct care (or by medical examiners for the statutory purpose of reviewing deaths), and the system meets the specified GP Connect consumer requirements, including information governance and clinical safety standards.
  • Access Document allows access to unstructured documents from a patient’s GP practice record. Unstructured documents are usually clinical documents received from various health and care settings and held by a patient's registered GP practice.

Working with GP Connect Access Record in GP practices

Key considerations for practices

  • control over sharing patient records remains with the practice and can be disabled, if necessary, at practice level
  • once enabled for GP Connect Access Record, practices have no additional tasks to perform to share patient records
  • an audit trail is available within the GP system, system suppliers have published guidance on how to access the audit trail
  • GP Connect Access Record is real-time, so the information sent to the consumer is an up-to-date reflection of the actual GP record

Enabling GP Connect Access Record

Most practices nationally are already enabled for Access Record: HTML.

In March 2025, Access Record: Structured started to roll out to community pharmacies, and GPIT suppliers expanded Access Record: Structured in general practice to include further sections that community pharmacy will access (Uncategorised and Investigations).

As part of the changes to the GP contract for 2025/26, by no later than 1 October 2025, general practices are required to ensure the functionality in GP Connect (Access Record: HTML and Access Record: Structured) is enabled to allow read-only access to patients’ care records.

Practices should contact their IT supplier for information or advice about enabling GP Connect: Access Record.

How GP Connect manages data

GP Connect respects a patient's decision not to share their data, but follows a different sharing model to Summary Care Record. Items marked as not for sharing or as sensitive will not be shared. Sensitive information such as fertility treatment, pregnancy terminations, gender reassignment and sexually transmitted diseases is excluded through the Royal College of General Practitioners’ (RCGP) sensitive dataset. 

GP practice teams should have awareness on how to manage patient consent in their system.

Read more about how we manage data.

Who can view the patient record using GP Connect Access Record?

Appropriate levels of end-user access to information via GP Connect Access Record in the consumer system is controlled by role-based access control (RBAC). How this is managed is dependent on the system in use.  

GP Connect Access Record: HTML is in wide use in settings such as primary care, social care, NHS 111, secondary care and ambulance.

You can see a full list of GP Connect end users in the GP Connect Data Transparency Portal. 

Using GP Connect Access Record within a primary care network (PCN)

GP Connect capabilities can be used within a PCN to share appointments, view records and share consultation summaries back to the patient record. In EMIS Web and SystmOne, Access Record: HTML can be used during a consultation with a patient who is registered at another practice to view their record. For more guidance, contact [email protected].

An example of GP Connect in a PCN

A patient with complex medical needs can call NHS 111 with a suspected infection, have their record triaged by an NHS 111 clinician (using GP Connect Access Record), get themselves an appointment with their local out-of-hours service within their same PCN, attend the appointment (using GP Connect Appointment Management), and have antibiotics prescribed. Information regarding their encounter can be sent in a PDF back to their registered GP to be added to the patient record (using GP Connect Send Document), where the information will then be available the next time someone uses an Access Record product.

Working with GP Connect Access Record in other settings

Many systems have now developed the ability to access the GP held patient record via GP Connect Access Record.

Reduced access to GP Connect Access Record: HTML for adult social care

Access to GP Connect is currently available to clinicians in a number of Care Quality Commission-registered care provider settings across England. It means that clinically qualified staff are able to see a patient’s full GP record when making decisions about their care.

With support from the National Data Guardian, GP Connect has been expanded into adult social care settings in order to allow non-clinical staff to view a filtered summary of a person’s GP record. The primary aim of this work is to support staff in delivering care safely by ensuring they have the most up-to-date information to hand.

Supported staff:

  • registered manager/care manager
  • deputy home manager/deputy care manager/senior carer/team leader
  • pharmacist/pharmacy technician
  • social worker
  • nurse

Having filtered access to GP Connect in a care home setting means that staff will be able to see information about allergies and adverse reactions, medications and immunisations for the person they are caring for. They will also be able to read notes on a resident’s last three encounters with their GP.

What information is available via GP Connect Access Record: HTML

Dependent on the consumer system implementation and care setting the Access Record: HTML view can contain the following information:

Summary 

The Access Record: HTML summary view is a standard view in all GP Connect implementations.  It is populated from information recorded within the patient record and contains:

  • active problems and issues 
  • current medication issues 
  • current repeat medications 
  • current allergies and adverse reactions 
  • last three encounters 

Consultation - encounters 

For GP Connect, an encounter is an interaction between a patient and a health care professional that's recorded on the patient record. These can be:

  • planned encounters - such as pre-arranged appointments with a GP 
  • unplanned encounters - such as at an out-of-hours clinic and those unrecorded through appointment modules 
  • direct encounters - such as a face-to-face session with a GP 
  • indirect encounters - such as a GP reviewing and updating a patient record on receipt of some test results 

Attended appointments appear as an encounter and these may reference a document, diagnostic report (investigation), or other parts of the record, dependent on local data entry processes. 

Problem 

Any issue that is significant to a patient that impacts their health or wellbeing. It includes disease, surgery, and social issues such as bereavement or unemployment.  

Clinical areas

Medications - current medication issues including repeat dispensing and medication history   

A list of drugs or other forms of medicines that are currently being, or have recently been, used to treat or prevent disease for the patient.    

Current repeat medication 

A list of repeat drugs or other forms of medicines that are currently being used to treat or prevent disease for the patient. This may also include PRN occasional use medication. 

Past medication 

A history view of drugs or other forms of medicines that have been used to treat or prevent disease for the patient.  

Allergies and adverse reactions 

Allergies and adverse reactions – description and date only. 

Referrals 

Request for transfer of care or requests to provide assessment/treatment or clinical advice on the care of a patient. 

Immunisation 

Vaccinations and immunisations.  May also contain vaccination-related information such as flu vaccine declined.  

Uncategorised 

Coded record entries not associated with a main clinical area of the record. These are split across three views: 

 

Administrative Items 

These include tasks such as scheduling and administering clinical care encounters, clinical communication with other care organisations, administering and monitoring of critical safety processes such as repeat medication administration and call/recall for care. Not all clinical systems support administrative items. 

Clinical items 

Items of information relating to the care, health, or wellbeing of the patient. Examples of this type of information include screening information and past medical history.  

Observations 

A clinical observation recorded by health professionals in the course of assessment or care of their patients. Examples include blood pressure measurement, weight, height, or temperature measurement. 

Last edited: 28 May 2025 3:39 pm