Need to know
For #TeamEEAST Last updated: 24 April 2024 at 15:14
We are all well aware of the impact COVID-19 has had on frontline staff and appreciate the effort of all of the clinicians working for EEAST during this busy and uncertain time. You may not be aware of the impact COVID-19 has had on our support staff, especially the Subject Access Request, Medical Records and Legal Services team.
Since the beginning of the pandemic the Trust has seen a huge increase of Subject Access Requests (SARs) from the Police, GPs, hospitals, members of the public, and the Legal Services team have seen a large increase of Coroner requests. Each of these requests takes time to review, find and collate the information required and has increased the workload and pressure on our teams. The Teams have also had to come to terms with working from home and changing the way they work whilst keeping to deadlines and legal time frames.
Below you can see the increase the teams have had (comparison to last year)
|
|
Number of Police/Solicitor/Public Requests |
|
|
|
|
2019 |
2020 |
|
increase |
|
|
March |
221 |
266 |
|
20% |
|
April |
234 |
247 |
|
6% |
|
May |
240 |
254 |
|
6% |
|
June |
214 |
288 |
|
35% |
|
July |
235 |
336 |
|
43% |
|
August |
256 |
313 |
|
22% |
|
September |
241 |
444 |
|
84% |
|
October |
282 |
419 |
|
48% |
|
|
Number of Coroner Requests |
|
|
|
2019 |
2020 |
increase |
|
|
March |
82 |
90 |
10% |
|
April |
45 |
94 |
108% |
|
May |
43 |
102 |
137% |
|
June |
77 |
130 |
69% |
|
July |
75 |
147 |
96% |
|
August |
78 |
115 |
47% |
|
September |
60 |
144 |
140% |
|
October |
85 |
119 |
40% |
The Medical Records Staff have seen a huge increase in the number of paper patient care records each of the locality offices are receiving. The medical records team are required to scan all paper records (including ROLEs, Capacity to Consent and Non-Conveyance forms) and look for the records for the teams above.
As you can see the increase has been extraordinary and hopefully the introduction of the new EPCR system will help see a reduction of paper care records.
|
|
Number of paper records scanned |
|
|
|
2019 |
2020 |
increase |
|
|
March |
17054 |
14113 |
-17% |
|
April |
15935 |
20386 |
28% |
|
May |
15702 |
23716 |
51% |
|
June |
12289 |
23412 |
91% |
|
July |
13085 |
23278 |
78% |
|
August |
12470 |
28779 |
130% |
|
September |
12652 |
30164 |
138% |
|
October* |
13189 |
21328 |
62% |
We would like to thank the teams for their continued hard work at a high standard whilst the pandemic continues.
Published 13 January 2021