The new Share Your Record service means that patients can give doctors and other NHS staff vital medical information from the GP record - including medication, allergies and test results - at the point of care. The highly secure system uses 256-bit encryption and is supported by a full audit trail.

It is the latest innovation from EMIS Health, which has pioneered patient online health services for more than a decade, and comes as GP practices meet NHS England's deadline today (31 March 2016) for enabling detailed medical records access for their patients.

Dr Geoff Shrecker, executive partner at the Gleadless Medical Centre in Sheffield, has been enabling record access for patients at his practice for four years. He said: "Share Your Record is a significant move forward in giving patients control of their information. Not only does it give them an opportunity to share that info with the clinician that they choose, it also means they don't have to rely on their memory during consultations.

"It does mean GPs investing a little time to ensure that patients understand their record but this will be amply repaid."

EMIS Group Chief Medical Officer Dr Shaun O'Hanlon said: "This is a major step forward for information sharing across health and social care.

"GPs, with an ethical and legal duty to safeguard patient confidentiality, have always insisted on rigorous agreements for data sharing. Share Your Record helps both patients and clinicians by putting the power in patients' hands, with patient-initiated consent."

Birmingham-based retired housing association CEO David Bayliss, 63, suffers from high blood pressure, raised cholesterol and occasional gout. He has been using records access since 2014 to help him manage his health.

"Having access to my detailed health record means that I don’t have to make an appointment with my doctor to check test results. I can go online. It gives me the information I need to make decisions about my diet or lifestyle to improve my health. I can see also a graph of trends in test results over a period of time, such as cholesterol levels and my two yearly prostate check. I feel I can make a judgement on whether I pursue a change to medication or a follow-up with my doctor. It makes me feel more in control."

Mr Bayliss found the Share Your Record function 'very easy' to use. "I will be recommending it to my mother-in-law, who is in her eighties. She had a slight stroke recently, and it took her forever in A&E to give her previous medical history to the doctors. Share Your Record could save so much time and anxiety.

"In just a few clicks you can share your record with anyone. Since I retired, we've gone on holiday several times a year, and if my wife or I fell ill away from home, the doctor would have all the information he or she needed at their fingertips."

Related news articles:

• EMIS' Profile

About EMIS Health
EMIS Health is part of EMIS Group plc - the UK leader in connected healthcare software and services.

EMIS Health provides software and services to clinicians working across every major UK healthcare setting, including:

• Primary Care - market leader with 54% share of the UK GP market; its systems hold 40 million cradle to grave patient records;
• Community Children's and Mental Health Care - 9% and growing UK market share;
• Secondary Care - 81% of NHS Acute Trusts use an EMIS Health system; its software holds 30 million patient records in A&E alone;
• Community Pharmacy - the single most used integrated community pharmacy and retail system (36% UK market share);
• Specialist Care - EMIS Health is the leading provider of software and services to support diabetic eye screening (82% English market share) and other ophthalmology and specialist services.

EMIS Health is an innovator in secure data-sharing to join up healthcare. It was the first in the UK to enable community pharmacists to access information from the GP patient record - supporting safer dispensing - and the first to integrate personal health data captured on wearable consumer devices with the GP patient record.