Last review date 03/02/2023

It is essential to record a patient's key code in a safe manner so that it is not shared with other organisations who care for the patient.

The Ardens 'Key Code' template can be used to safely record this information against the read code 'Patient door access key code - XaZ1Q'. This template enables you to record their consent and to mark the event as private so that this information is not shared with other organisations.

When you mark the event as private on the template, it will also mark everything else you have recorded during that consultation as private too and will hide it from the shared record. To avoid potentially hiding information that should be part of the shared record, if you are recording a patient's key code we advise that you record this at the beginning of a consultation, then mark the event as private and then start a new consultation to record any other information.

If you use the Ardens 'Home Visit View' this key code will be merged on to the view so you have this number to hand when doing your visits. Please always ensure that you follow your Information Governance Policies when handling this paper information. 

Whilst practices often use reminders to record the key code, we advise you do not use reminders as this information is often very visible to everyone on the patient's home screen and certain types of reminders are also shared between different organisations who care for the patient.

How do I check key codes have been recorded safely retrospectively on our patients?

If the read code 'Patient door access key code - XaZ1Q' has previously been used to record a patient's key code, to find these patients go to Clinical Reporting > Ardens Ltd > Registration > Practice List > Has patient access key code.

You can then review these patients individually and find where the read code was recorded in their journal and then either:

1. Mark this event as private if appropriate from the journal (see Privacy Settings). Please be cautious that you do not record other items recorded in the same consultation as private too. You may need to mark in error the previous key code that was recorded and then re-record the key code using the template above.  Marking as Private will mean that the information is not shared during record sharing.  

2. Mark the event in error and remove it from their record if appropriate.

If reminders have been used to record key codes previously, sadly there is not an easy way to identify these patients. The only way is to create a report to identify patients who have a reminder on their record and then go through every patient individually and remove the key code as appropriate and use the 'Key Code' template instead.

Further information about Privacy Settings.

Home Visit Printing the Key Code

Ardens has set up two Home Visit Prints that will merge with the Access Key Code - Patient > Print > Print Summary OR Patient > Print > Email Summary (to email to someone in your Practice Address Book)

Note: if the Key Code is marked as Private, you can still see it on the Summary Print out