Current status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 22 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its policy goals are for pharmacists working in the community in relation to being able to access full clinical records for patients in their care to ensure safe prescribing, and when it expects these goals to be met.
The Scottish Government is committed to collaborate with key partners across the NHS in Scotland to ensure that relevant information, with the appropriate safeguards in place, is available to all healthcare professionals, including community pharmacists, when and where they need it.
As community pharmacists expand their clinical role, there is an increasing need for them to have read/write access to clinical records to ensure that they can safely assess and agree a clinical management plan for a person and any associated actions or treatments can be viewed by other healthcare professionals involved in a person’s care, without any unnecessary delay.
The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer has commissioned work to explore how read/write access to clinical records can be delivered incrementally.