Improving Staff Engagement to Increase Patient Adoption of the NHS App in General Practice
Read More »
28th August 2026
No Comments
The Notts Care Record went live for users at Sherwood Forest Hospitals (SFH) in July 2025. Since then, the number of records accessed have steadily increased, with over 6,000 records being accessed so far.
Earlier this month, Digital Notts (DN) spoke to Dr Colin Dunkley (CD), paediatric consultant and epilepsy lead at Sherwood Forest Hospitals, to understand how Colin is using the Notts Care Record within his clinics and the impact it is having.
Question 1: Digital Notts (DN): Hi Colin. Thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us about your role and how you use digital technology within your clinics.
Yes, I’m a paediatric consultant at SFH and children’s epilepsy lead.
I’m already a digital advocate, as here at SFH we’ve been using PKB for our Epilepsy service since 2022. We use PKB for secure video sharing, information prescribing, messaging and other care planning functions.
So, I know the difference and impact improved information sharing can have within my own services, both clinically and for the overall patient experience.
Question 2: DN: When seeing your patients in clinic what are the challenges you experience when needing access to patient information?
Patients can be referred from a variety of settings; General Practice, ED, other specialities and can have ongoing input from neighbouring hospitals such as Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH).
We were often over reliant on the patient or the patient’s family to provide details of other health providers involvement. Sometimes there could be a difference between the prescription/medication the patient thought they were taking and what the GP or other hospitals had prescribed or recommended. This has meant it wasn’t easy to understand the reality of current treatment plans. And although we could access GP records via Orion, the process was quite clunky and time-consuming.
In our epilepsy service we do a lot of shared care work with other hospitals such as NUH. These patients often have quite complex needs with input from paediatric neurology, neurosurgeons or other Nottingham based services.
We provide shared care and support at a local level, but there are often real challenges in knowing what the latest plan is from their other hospital. We generally receive the information via a physical letter, but this can be after some delay or not reach us at all.
Often it has been impossible to see this information, or we could be a couple of treatment plans behind. This meant we would need to do a lot of relying on the family or chasing copy letters which can cause delay or second-guessing in treatment plans. There was also no easy access to historical patient information
Question 3: DN: Tell us about your experience of using the Notts Care Record.
I’d heard about the Notts Care Record and the data that would be in the system but didn’t realise how useful it would be.
And although it’s still early days, the Notts Care Record is already having a positive impact in accessing a patient’s medical history and see the treatments and medicines they’ve received from NUH or elsewhere within Nottingham & Nottinghamshire.
Because we can see the information directly, there is less reliance on the patient to recall very detailed treatment information. The Notts Care Record is providing immediacy of access and saving time, which could take weeks of chasing information.
Question 4: DN: Have you found the Notts Care Record easy to use?
It is easy to use and navigate. The data and patient information is clearly laid out and coloured coded.
Having easy access to summary patient data from our local area health and care partners is useful. I’ve already mentioned NUH but there’s Notts Healthcare Trust (such as RiO) and GP data too. The Notts Care Record provides a more complete richer patient data set than Orion.
Also, there are less steps needed to access patient data, and it certainly has less time lags; both are important if you have a patient sat in front of you during a clinic.
Question 5: DN: Is there a particular Notts Care Record patient case study you could share with us?
There is one particular patient I’ll mention…
This patient was having increased seizures, but we weren’t sure whether it was ourselves or NUH who were managing that problem and what the safety netting plan was. This was a child who had a vagal nerve stimulator inserted by neurosurgery and was in the early phases of improving seizure control.
We invited the patient into clinic, and I was able to access their NUH patient information within the Notts Care Record. This meant we were quickly able to see their care plan from NUH and ensure my team and I focused on the right issue, aligning our thinking and planning.
Having this holistic overview of all their needs and treatments really helped in this situation.
Question 6: DN: That’s a great case study, thank you. So, moving on, what advice would you give to other clinical colleagues looking to start using the Notts Care Record.
Give it (the Notts Care Record) a go and have a look at the information that is available.
The more I use it, the more I think of other ways it will be able support particular patients with their ongoing care. I’m sure others, including AHPs, Specialist Nurses will find it particularly useful.
Question 7: DN: And finally, is there anything else you’d like to say about the Notts Care Record?
Reliable information is so much of what we need in health care. Too often we are uninformed, relying on others to relay information second hand, second guessing or chasing.
Being in a position where we can see the relevant information around our patient has been transformative.
Key information:
The Notts Care Record is the new second-generation shared care record for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.
It enables health and social care data sharing from a range of organisational partners to view patient data in a quick and secure way.
For more details on the Notts Care Record visit The Notts Care Record – Digital Notts
