Connecting Your Care

Connecting Your Care: Improving how we use your information

What do we mean by “Connecting Your Care”?

We are working with South West London Health and Care Partnership to improve the way we connect your care across south west London. Soon, healthcare professionals will be able to access your records from other NHS services when you need them to. This will make it quicker and easier for you when you visit your GP or hospital.

At the moment, each care organisation has a different system for managing your records, and there is no way for the information to be shared electronically when it is needed by doctors and nurses.

Connecting your Care means that people involved in your care such as your GP, hospital doctors and nurses, will be able to immediately see important information about you through a secure system, to help them make the best decisions about your care.

In the future, we will also be working with other health and social care providers to share a more detailed care record for you, which will include the treatment you receive from community NHS services, mental health services and social care services. This will allow everyone involved in your care to be able to make the best decisions for your treatment.

Do I have a choice?

If you are happy for your information to be shared in this way, then you don’t need to do anything. The Connecting your Care system will be phased in over the next few months.

If you do not want to share any of your health and care records, you will need to contact the Data Protection Officer at the organisation(s) that holds the record concerned and advise them that you “object” to sharing your information to Connecting your Care. Details of how to contact the Data Protection Officer for each organisation will be in the Privacy Notice on their website. Each organisation you submit an “objection” to will review your request and respond to you directly.

If you have records in more than one organisation you will need to contact each organisation separately.

Want to find out more?

To find out more, you can speak to your GP practice staff directly or contact South West London Health and Care Partnership on:

Email: connectingyourcare@swlondon.nhs.uk
Phone: 0203 668 3100
Post: Freepost SWL Connecting Your Care