An Audit of the Quality of Deployed DMICP Records on Operation HERRICK 14

BACKGROUND: Troops deploying to remote and hostile environments are exposed to numerous threats to their health and wellbeing. Medical care is provided by dedicated but often inexperienced young doctors, nurses and medics. This audit looks at the quality of medical records that are available to these deployed clinicians and the quality of their record keeping against nationally set guidance for the Summary Care Record (SCR) and Out of Hours record keeping. METHODS: The data was collected from consecutive GP and nurse medical consultations at Camp Bastion Primary Health Care Centre during Op HERRICK 14. RESULTS: Only 21.7% of personnel had an imported medical record from the UK and only 1% had a summary fitting the guidance for the SCR. Additionally the quality of record keeping for consultations did not conform to standards set by the Royal College of General Practitioners 'Out of Hours Clinical Audit Tool'. CONCLUSIONS: The low numbers and poor quality of imported medical records into Op HERRICK 14 alongwith the inexperience of clinicians in keeping medical records compliant with relevant standards is of primary importance in the context of patient safety on operations. This audit highlights a number of areas of potential concern for the Defence Medical Services and areas for enhancement of pre-deployment training.