Connecting Care - information for health and care staff

What is Connecting Care?

Connecting Care is our Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire programme, dedicated to using technology to support:

• Better information sharing between local health and social care organisations
• Joining up information to ensure care is focused around the individual and their needs
• Improving better, safer and more joined-up care
• Supporting increased efficiency in the delivery of health and social care services
• Ensuring that the people who are providing care have the information they need, when they need it

How Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire health and care professionals are using Connecting Care

Some of our health and professionals shared how Connecting Care has been useful in their roles to deliver high quality care to patients. The full playlist can be found on the Healthier Together YouTube channel.

Connecting Care is centred on the person/patient.  It pulls together health and social care information that previously was not linked in any way.  This unified view is already being used to facilitate improved care provision and better decision-making across our region.

It is enabling authorised care professionals, delivering direct care in hospitals, community settings, GP practices, out-of-hours services and social care teams to see a single electronic view of information about the person they are caring for.

Please note that Connecting Care provides a summary of information to be viewed by health and social care professionals.  Please be aware that there is no complete paper or electronic record in place for service users.

If you have any questions about the programme, please contact the team at connectingcare.info@nhs.net

User guides for health and care professionals using the Connecting Care Portal

The Connecting Care Programme Team have developed a number of resources to assist in using the portal. If after consulting the documentation you still have a questions please contact your organisation’s IT service desk.

The video below shows how to navigate around the Connecting Care dashboard.

Please note that these are not available if you access Connecting Care in the context of the patient via your main patient administration system.

Privacy Information

Service users of organisations in the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire area should be informed about the use of their data through Connecting Care. This may be achieved through conversation with care professionals and links to the Connecting Care website being included in your organisation’s privacy information. 

Materials to ensure service users are informed about uses of their data in Connecting Care are available to all participating organisations. These include posters, leaflets and the Connecting Care page, and organisations are expected to actively promote these materials to individuals. 

The privacy information provided to service users includes details on how they may raise any concerns about the use of their data.

Should a service user have concerns about their data being available to care professionals through Connecting Care then they may choose to opt out of their data being shared via Connecting Care.

It should be made clear to service users that this means that essential data may not be available to care professionals in such a timely manner, which could result in them receiving less efficient/effective care.

The service user should also be aware that should there be a safeguarding concern for them, or someone linked to them, data may still be accessed via Connecting Care for this reason.

Should the service user still wish to opt out of their data being available to care professionals through Connecting Care then their data will continue to be shared by traditional, less efficient and less secure ways, such as telephone, post or email.

Who to contact if you need help with Connecting Care

For any questions, please email connectingcare.info@nhs.net  

For any user access queries or issues relating to the Connecting Care Portal please contact your own organisation’s IT Service Desk.

This includes questions/issues relating to:

• Accessing the Portal
• Password resets
• Data Quality – Missing or inaccurate information
• Patient Matching
• Information Governance and consent
• Training

Document Sharing with Connecting Care

North Bristol Trust (NBT), University Hospitals Bristol and Weston Trust (UHBW) and Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Trust (AWP) share some documents for display in Connecting Care.

These documents are shared electronically with the appropriate GP practice in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.