If I decide to object, how will this affect the treatment I receive?
While you are free to object to sharing your information through Joining Up Your Information, it is important that you understand the implications of doing so.
GPs, hospitals, community health, mental health and social care teams all hold important information about patients but it is often not available to people working in other parts of your local NHS and care community.
This is because different parts of the system are using specialised but currently unlinked systems so important information in one part of the NHS may not be readily available to people treating you in another.
Doctors, nurses and other people providing care will base their treatment on the information they have about you – often relying on referral information from other health and social care colleagues.
They need this information to make sure you receive the best and most appropriate care, but if more details are needed you might have to repeat answers you have already given, fill out more forms or even undergo tests that have already been carried out at an earlier stage of your treatment.
It could also mean delays if, for example, a hospital consultant has to contact your GP surgery to confirm details – this is often by letter, fax or telephone.
JUYI makes key parts of your medical records available whenever and wherever they are needed to staff who are directly involved in caring for you.
Remember, the details they have access to are already being shared (by letter, fax or telephone, for example) – all we are doing is using secure technology to give doctors, nurses and others involved in your care, better access.
The right information, in the right place, at the right time.