How do shared care records work in the NHS?

Shared care records are federated systems that bring together information from GP practices, hospitals, community services, mental health trusts, and social care into a single accessible view. They are not a single national database — they query data from source systems at the point of need using a master patient index for patient matching, a consent/access control service, FHIR APIs or document queries, and a clinician-facing portal. Regional programmes cover populations of 3–5 million within ICS boundaries.