Over the past few months, a number of new feeds have entered the Dorset Care Record (DCR). At the end of last year, the first mental health records from Dorset HealthCare were made available to health and social care professionals.
Demographic information, which includes the name, date of birth, address, next of kin, NHS number and ethnicity of Dorset residents, along with inpatient and outpatient details were included in the package. Benefits will include practitioners having access to GP and other partner’s patient care details, the provision of near real-time information in one place and greater coordination of care between health and social care staff across Dorset. It followed the introduction of the first community physical health data which went live from DHC in October.
Meanwhile, in November, adult referrals from Dorset Council were added, expanding the amount of social care information available on the DCR. We hope the move will be particularly helpful to other health professionals, who will be able to see details of when older people, informal carers or younger adults with learning difficulties, visual impairment of physical impairment have been referred.
The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in a huge rise in the number of records accessed during 2020 and the addition of Yeovil District Hospital in Somerset and community pharmacies across Dorset accessing the DCR means that in December nearly 19,000 patient records were viewed by the 2,135 trained health and social care professionals across the DCR Partnership.
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