Using PRSB standards
PRSB record standards are designed to work with any system; for example, electronic patient record systems (EPRs) in hospitals and specialist applications, such as maternity or diabetes management systems.
The standards are used to inform what information should be available, how it should be recorded and what information should be shared. If a shared care record, GP record and an EPR record hold information that is standardised, it can be shared with different systems across different settings without loss of meaning.
Different health and care systems
These are some of the different record systems in use across Health and Social Care. They should all align to information record standards.
Electronic patient record
An electronic patient record (EPR) is used in the care and support of a person by professionals, or by the person themselves. The information held in an EPR should be shareable across the system and accessible by professionals with a legitimate reason to access the information. A person may have more than one electronic patient record; for example, their GP and a hospital may have a record about them.
Shared care record
A shared care record brings together health and care information about a person using services from multiple electronic records, held in different organisations, across an area.
This means that the information about a person may come from the GP record, hospital records, local authority or care home systems, and is brought together in a record that is shared across the area with professionals with a legitimate reason to access the information.
Person-held record
A person-held record is the information about a person’s health, care and wellbeing. It is managed by the person whom the record is about, and they can add to it.
Health and care professionals can also add to the record. It must be secure, usable and online.
Find out more about Personal Health Records definition by NHS Digital.
How is the information displayed?
Local systems implementers decide how the information is displayed, based on how the users want to view it. This means that the standard is not tied to any one system, and is flexible and resilient to change. Which systems are implemented and used within an organisation or across an Integrated Care System, and how they are used and interact, is determined locally. Here are some examples of how information may be displayed in different systems:
Information, e.g., investigation results could be displayed in date order or grouped by types of test result, e.g., HbA1c, Cholesterol and Liver Function Tests.
Information could be filtered or ordered based on the professional’s requirements.
Observations such as height and weight could be graphed; for example, as growth charts for children.
Summary information could be displayed with drill-down to more detailed information.
Who uses PRSB standards?
Health and social care professionals
To ensure that health and care professionals have the information they need to provide safe, joined-up care that is responsive to a person’s preferences and needs.
IT systems and medical technology suppliers
To design systems that enable professionals to record, send and receive the right information for care using their systems.
Developers and implementers
To guide their system design.
Creating different views of standards
When we develop our standards, we consult with a wide range of professionals and people who use services. This ensures that all relevant information that should be recorded for care purposes is defined in the standards.
Certain users, such as podiatrists, optometrists and care home staff, may only need a part of the information recorded about a person. The definition of the information needs for a specific group of users are “views” of the standard and would be guidance for using the standard, rather than a standard in its own right. This is an example of how information in a person’s record may be shared in a care home. Staff could see different levels of information in a person’s record depending on their role.
Lower-level access
This is the minimum information set for all people working in a care home, including both registered health and social care professionals and unregistered persons.
Higher-level access
This is the information that may be accessed by registered health and social care professionals based on their role in the care home, or where the care home authorises a higher level of access for unregistered care home staff.
Information governance
Sound principles of information governance and respecting the privacy of people and their information is paramount.
The implementation of PRSB information standards is dependent on the national and local information governance frameworks which will determine information access and sharing controls between health and care provider organisations.
NHS England has published a National Information Governance Framework which must be considered when planning implementation.
Local agreements should be drawn up between organisations to define information requirements for sharing confidential personal health and care data.
