A quarter of the Sussex population have access to real-time health records

The portal gives access to important health and care information including appointments, discharge letters, care plans, allergies, diagnoses, medications, and detailed test results, that can be accessed on the phone, tablet, or desktop, at any time.

People also have access to several tools to help them understand and manage their health, including a journal, symptom tracker and resource library, along with the ability to upload data and share this securely with a healthcare team, carer or family member.

Improving the use of digital technology and information is one of the key priorities for health and care partners in Sussex this year – to help join-up our services and enable people to access advice or care more easily. This work is an example of how digital tools are improving the way services work together and provide information to patients.

This service is offered in partnership with Patients Know Best.

Liam Young*, a planner based in Worthing who is recovering from leukaemia, says MHCR has helped to give back his independence. “You can find out information for yourself,” he says. “The results it gives me are exactly what I want to know. These are haemoglobin, platelet, white blood cells and neutrophil levels. That keeps a tab on everything and means I can figure out whether I’m tired due to my blood count or whether I’m higher risk on a particular day.”

Claire Isham, MHCR Capability Lead for Sussex, said: “With a quarter of adult patients in Sussex signing up, we have achieved a major milestone that will revolutionise our health and care across Sussex. This will reduce the burden on our busy and over-worked clinicians.

“By giving patients access to vital and real-time information - like a detailed breakdown of blood test results - we are supporting patients to monitor their own condition, as well as deepen their understanding of their own health. As we witness more strain on our NHS services, real-time access to this information is going to be increasingly vital”.

To sign up, visit our My Health and Care Record page: https://my.patientsknowbest.com/?team=mhacr-sussex

My Health and Care Record is part of the Our Care Connected Programme. The OCC programme is supporting the immediate and long-term improvement of health and care services across Sussex by providing patients, clinicians and researchers access to data and integrated information.

To see more about our ambitions for the use of digital, read our Sussex five-year Integrated Care Strategy: Improving Lives Together - Our strategy: https://www.sussex.ics.nhs.uk/our-priorities/our-strategy/ A five year Shared Delivery Plan is currently in development to set out how these ambitions will be achieved for Sussex.

*Not real name