A platform to share critical patient data across health and care has gone live in Devon and Cornwall.

The Devon and Cornwall Care Record, which is now live on the Orion Health Amadeus platform, is enabling frontline staff to access key items of patient information from GP, hospital, health and social care IT systems as a single record.

Dr John McCormick, a GP, and the clinical lead for the Devon and Cornwall Care Record, said: “We are developing the record progressively, in a controlled way, so we can be confident about the quality of the data that it contains, and how to use it.

“However, it is already supporting my work as a GP. I can see what’s going on with patients now in other parts of the system. It’s also very positive for practice staff, because they don’t have to chase up letters or ring other services all the time, just to find out what is happening.”

The development of shared care records is an important strand of the government’s digital health and social care policy. NHS England asked every integrated care system to have a ‘basic’ shared care record by September last year and has developed a maturity strategy to add additional features over the next three years.

Orion Health is a leading provider of shared care records to the NHS in England, and also provides integrated care record systems to health boards in Scotland and the health and care system in Northern Ireland.

Ian Binks, sales director from Orion Health, said: “This is a significant step to see another customer go-live with our shared care record. We would like to congratulate everybody involved with the Devon and Cornwall Care Record on the success of the first phase of the deployment.

“Now this has been achieved, we look forward to working with the Devon and Cornwall Care Record team to develop the record further, for the benefit of local health and care services, professionals, patients and citizens.”