Updates

02/04/2020 COVID-19 and Thames Valley & Surrey Care Records programme Update

The Thames Valley and Surrey (TVS) Care Records Partnership Board met on 25 March 2020 and discussed how the Partnership can work together in a different way to support health and care professionals in caring for patients in the context of COVID-19.

Partners recognise the importance of being able to share data across the TVS area and the growing importance of ‘anywhere access’ to data in the light of the current crisis.

Therefore in the short term the programme will be exploring how we can:

  • Support the COVID-19 response, such as linking real-time GP data (information on medications and problems) for direct patient care. This can benefit patients registered at over 90% of GP practices in the TVS area.
  • Safely accelerate the integration and sharing of people’s data into the TVS Care Records, without any negative impact on staff’s ability to support urgent COVID-19 work, with the aim of sharing data across local boundaries as soon as possible. 
  • Be agile and flexible in our approach to delivering the TVS Care Records, as the programme team may be deployed to support COVID-19 related activities. Therefore each local area will take greater ownership of TVS Care Records activity as we move towards a more locally led programme approach.  

This will all be done whilst continuing to apply the essential controls to ensure confidentiality and security of patient records 

A revised delivery model will be created to ensure we work effectively together as a Partnership during COVID-19 to maximise the value and benefits for everyone from the TVS Care Records.