EmailThe LMC says that of the 82,000 records which have been uploaded in the South Birmingham primary care trust area, 8,200 contain errors as a result of a failure to update data on medication and allergies. South Birmingham was one of the first areas to start turning patient records into SCRs.
Dr Robert Morley, executive secretary of Birmingham LMC, told SmartHealthcare.com: "Basically the SCR has been uploaded onto the central database, the national Spine, and in subsequent consultations with those patients, changes to medication or allergies were not updated centrally. They were updated where the records were held, where the patients were treated, but the central database had not been updated."
He said that it was too early to say whether patients had been affected, but he called for a halt to the programme until the issues have been resolved.
"I am very concerned because my view is that this is one more issue with the SCR that now makes it totally flawed and unfit for purpose," said Morley.
"We have had previous issues over consent, security and confidentiality, and whether there might be inaccuracies in summaries at the point of actually uploading them onto the database. But the fact that they have subsequently become out of date because changes are not being sent up nationally is yet a further problem."
The British Medical Association's General Practitioners' Committee has called for an immediate halt to uploads of SCRs onto the Spine, and said that access to any existing records must be stopped until all the current issues have been fully investigated and resolved. It wrote to the government on 16 July 2010 to this effect.
A spokesperson for the BMA added: "We are not opposed to electronic records per se, but there are issues with the way the scheme is being implemented."
A Department of Health spokesperson said: "We believe the decision on whether to create new Summary Care Records must continue to be taken locally by GP practices and primary care trusts."
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