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Summary Care Records project lives

Minister confirms database is healthy

The Summary Care Records project will continue in care trusts where patients have been properly informed about the process.

Michael Fallon, Conservative MP for Sevenoaks, asked health minister Simon Burns if the controversial project to upload summary records to the central spine would continue. The LibDems made some vague noises about the database state before they got into bed with the Tories.

But a Parliamentary Answer from Burns yesterday revealed the scheme is going ahead.

Burn said: "Uploading of information to the summary care record will continue to take place, where the relevant general practitioner (GP) practices and primary care trusts (PCTs) agree that patients have been adequately informed about the process, and properly enabled to opt out should they wish, and where GP practices and PCTs are satisfied that data are of an appropriate quality for sharing."

The SCR has been controversial partly because you must opt out, rather than opt in, and partly because once a record has been created there is no way to erase it.

The coalition government has ditched the ID card project and has pledged to get rid of ContactPoint - the kids' database.

The SCR project is part of the NPfIT - the £12.7bn project to rewire the NHS. ®

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