Work will begin to connect all care homes across the Capital to the London Care Record helping their staff provide the best possible care to their residents (28 June 2023).

The London Care Record is a single and secure view of a person’s health and care information that helps ensure frontline staff have the information they need about a person when they need it.

Late in 2022, as part of a pilot programme, the first 28 care homes in the Capital were connected to the London Care Record meaning that for the first time they could see wider and key information about their residents from a range of health and care settings across London. This includes allergies, test results and care plans as well as GP data and hospital discharge summaries.

Evaluation of the pilot programme showed:

• The London Care Record was used around 2,000 times by care home staff with the most viewed information being hospital discharge summaries, diagnostic reports, laboratory results and care plans.
• Information helped staff provide more effective care to residents, reduced unnecessary ambulance call outs and hospital admissions and supported faster discharges from hospital.
• It also saved care home staff, as well as GP surgery teams and hospital staff, valuable time by reducing the need to spend time on the phone checking key information that is available to view within the London Care Record.

Following this pilot programme work will now begin to provide access to the London Care Record to all of London’s 1,500 care homes. These care home staff will join over 75,000 other frontline professionals across the Capital and some neighbouring areas who are using the London Care Record each month.

This will take place in a phased approach over the next couple of years with details to be agreed with Integrated Care Boards, care homes and other partners. Details of this will be available on the OneLondon website in due course.

Strict controls are in place about who can use the London Care Record – only staff involved in a person’s care are allowed to view the information. Therefore this process will include full training of staff about access rules and data security and there will be detailed monitoring and evaluation to ensure the London Care Record is being used appropriately and to measure the impact.

Harpreet Shergill, NHS London Digital Health & Care Lead, said:

“We want to ensure that our dedicated care home staff have the information they need to provide the best possible care for their residents. So it is great news that work will now begin to enable all of the Capital’s care homes to use the London Care Record giving them access to more comprehensive health information about their residents. Based on the experiences of those who took part in our pilot we know this will make a positive difference to care home staff and the residents they care for right across the Capital.”

Pauline Humphrey, Registered Manager Kallar Lodge Care Home, said:

“One of our residents with dementia was recently in a great deal of distress. By looking at the London Care Record we could check her records and found that many years ago she had suffered a significant emotional trauma that explained her current behaviour. Thanks to this we were able to find an effective way to calm her down and manage a very difficult situation while also planning the best care for her moving forwards.”

Michael Armstrong, Managing Director Havering Care Homes, said:

“When we are waiting on medication to be delivered, we no longer need to call the pharmacy and then the GP to establish if the prescription has been raised by the GP and sent to the pharmacist. We can now see this information automatically in the London Care Record saving my team a lot of time which can now be better spent with our residents.”

Ronniel Alarilla, Registered Manager Heathlands Care Home, said:

“Recently one of our residents had to be admitted to hospital. Thanks to the London Care Record we could see the patient summaries from both the London Ambulance Service and Emergency Department so could check their condition which gave the team peace of mind. Crucially it also gave us the information we need to effectively plan their care when they return to the home.”