Anticipatory Care Forms from University Hospitals Dorset (UHD) are now available within the DCR. This document helps to make and record decisions a patient has made about their health and death in conjunction with the doctors and nurses looking after them and their friends and family if they wish. The form asks a number of questions that may impact how a patient is treated based on their own wishes.
News
Dorset Council goes live with Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP) Reports
Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP) reports from Dorset Council have become the first social care document to be added to the Dorset Care Record, expanding the amount of social care information available. This document will now be more readily accessible by practitioners from other services, saving time in having to source the information.
In the coming weeks, the Dorset Care Record is expecting to receive further social care information from Dorset Council in the form of care packages from Adult Services and relationships across both Adults and Children’s services.
Pathology reports now available from University Hospitals Dorset (UHD)
Pathology reports from UHD are now available alongside the reports from DCH that have been live since 2019. This will be particularly beneficial to senior clinicians, GPs, nurses and pharmacists and will provide much easier access to results and reports performed across the county, as well as ensuring there will be clearer decisions about people’s care.
In the coming months we will also be looking to deliver care packages from Adults social care at Dorset Council, substance misuse alerts from Halo and relationships from Dorset Council.
Release 13 is here!
On Saturday 23 March 2024 we implemented our first release of 2024 and delivered before Easter as planned.
Release 13 introduces a number of key features:
- Infrastructure changes to allow substance misuse relationships and medications to be added to the system.
The DCR now has the ability accept Relationships and Medications information from the Halo caseload management system which is used by community drug and alcohol services across the county. We will be working with Reach (Dorset) and With You (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) to deliver this information over the next few months.
- Infrastructure changes to upgrade the Medications viewer.
The medications viewer has been upgraded to the latest version. This has been necessary to accept the substance misuse medications and also delivers improvements to the layout and presentation of medications.
- Removal the Discussion to view functionality.
Following the DCR programme board and the pan Dorset data protection group’s approvals we have removed the requirement for a “Discussion to View” conversation. This has also been updated in our training materials.
- Relationships and Contacts space
In preparation for introduction of social care and substance misuse relationships a new section has been added. Relationships and Contacts sits in the left hand panel of DCR. Currently that will display emergency contacts and next of kin information that sits within the Additional Details section.
This release also includes a number of fixes.
New information
Since release 12 we have also gone live with:
- Dorset Healthcare’s mental health documents
- Halo (substance misuse) demographics, referrals and encounters
Over the coming weeks we are expecting to see the following information arrive into DCR:
- Care Packages from Dorset Council
- University Hospital Dorset’s pathology
- Children’s referrals from Dorset Council
Our next release will be R14 and is expected in summer 2024
HALO Demographic, Referral and Encounter Feeds in the DCR
Substance Misuse Services Information Shown in the DCR
On Wednesday 28th February 2024 we implemented a new set of feeds into the DCR relating to engagement with substance misuse services.
The feeds originate from the HALO caseload management system, used by community substance misuse services in Dorset, and currently include:-
Demographics
Demographic data from HALO will include other known addresses and a HALO unique identifier (HALO ID), which will be visible in the DCR alongside other local identifiers.
Referrals
Referral data will provide information on the referral source into substance misuse services, length and outcome of treatment, plus discharge information including the reason for discharge.
Encounters
Encounter data will show past and upcoming appointments with substance misuse services, including the outcome of each appointment.
This is the first phase of substance misuse data populating the DCR and over the coming months we are expecting to add:-
Alert data
Prescribing information relating to opiate substitute therapy (OST)
Relationship data
We would value your feedback on this new information – please contact dorsetcarerecord@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk to send feedback.

Additional mental health information from Dorset HealthCare
From Wednesday 17th January, we’ll be receiving additional mental health data from Dorset Healthcare (DHC).
DHC will be sending:
- more detailed appointment information – found in the summary tab.
- clinic letters to DCR – found in the document tree.
We are continually working with all of our partners to increase the richness of information held in DCR and more information can be found here – Features updates – Dorset Care Record – Staff area (dorsetcouncil.gov.uk)

Release 12 is here!
Release 12 is here!
On Saturday 18th November 2023 we implemented a new release of DCR, 1 week earlier than originally planned for and our 3rd for 2023.
Release 12 introduces a number of key features:
Infrastructure changes to allow social care – relationships to be added to the system
The DCR now has the ability accept Relationships information from both Mosaic systems at Dorset Council and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council. We will be working with these partners over the coming months for them to start sending the information to the DCR.
Infrastructure changes to allow substance misuse information to be added to the system:
DCR now has the ability to accept Alerts from the Halo caseload management system, which is used by community drug and alcohol services across the county. We are working with Reach (Dorset) and With You (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) to deliver this information over the next few months.
This release also includes a number of fixes including a fix to enable UHD Pathology to be delivered shortly.
Over the coming months we are expecting to see the following information arrive into DCR:
- Care Packages from Dorset Council
- Halo demographics, referrals and encounters
- University Hospital Dorset’s pathology and
- Dorset Health Care’s mental health documents
This is our final release of 2023 and our next release will be Release 13 aiming for before Easter 2024.

Release 11 is here!
On Saturday 12 August 2023 we implemented a new release of DCR.
Release 11 introduces a number of key features:
Infrastructure changes to allow social care – care packages to be added to the system:
The DCR now has the ability to accept care packages from both Mosaic systems at Dorset Council and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council. We will be working with these partners over the coming months for them to start sending the information to the DCR.
Infrastructure changes to allow substance misuse information to be added to the system:
DCR now has the ability to accept demographics, referrals, and encounters from the Halo caseload management system, which is used by community drug and alcohol services across the county. We are working with Reach (Dorset) and With You (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) to deliver this information over the next few months.
New user role
We have added a new clerical admin role (for users that do not need access to clinical information) and we will be identifying users for this over the coming months.
Interoperability with CHIE
Infrastructure changes have been made to DCR in anticipation of sharing documents with Hampshire and Isle of Wight shared care record.
Social care tab
A new place in the record to show social care alerts, referrals and care packages in one place
This is an exciting period for us as we are expecting to have both University Hospitals Dorset’s pathology and Dorset Health Care’s mental health documents arriving shortly too.
Our next release will be Release 12 and we are aiming for it to be before Christmas 2023. Watch this space!

Dorset Care Record annual user survey
To help us continually look to improve the Dorset Care Record (DCR) for professionals across our health and social care partnership we would be grateful if you could spend 5 minutes filling in our survey. It will allow you to highlight what you like and don’t like about the DCR and what you’d love to see added or changed.
Last year’s survey responses were extremely helpful and allowed us to prove that the system was benefitting both patients and professionals alike.
Your responses from the 2022 survey revealed:
- 9 out of 10 users said that time was saved using the DCR.
- Around a third of users successfully reduced the use of paper and therefore avoided some printing costs by using the DCR.

Release 10 Test Plan and System Down Time
We will shortly be going into a release 10 testing period, and there are some key dates and partner activities to share. Partner testing is limited for this release. Continue reading “Release 10 Test Plan and System Down Time”