Statement from NHS England and the Health and Social Care Information Centre in response to the Daily Telegraph article, ‘Tesco can see your medical records’ (10 August, 2015)

Statement from NHS England and the Health and Social Care Information Centre in response to the Daily Telegraph article, ‘Tesco can see your medical records’ (10 August, 2015) We would like to make clear that the article published by the Daily Telegraph, ‘Tesco can see your medical records’ contains a number of inaccuracies.

The Summary Care Record (SCR) is used by healthcare professionals, on explicit consent of the patient, to support direct patient care.

While a regulated healthcare professional may have secure, controlled access to the SCR in a pharmacy within a supermarket as with any other pharmacy setting, this information is not accessible by other means and will never be available to supermarkets for other purposes, such as marketing.

The information can only be accessed through a secure, encrypted private network by authorised, regulated pharmacy professionals who have been carefully granted a pin-protected access card.

If a pharmacy professional shared confidential patient information for any purpose other than direct care, they can be held liable in law and held to account by the General Pharmaceutical Council, which has the legal authority to apply sanctions, up to and including withdrawal of their license to practice. NHS England