Practices have been digitising records for many years, although the legacy manual record (Lloyd George envelope) has had to be kept.
After many years deliberation, the DHSC has now agreed that it is appropriate and lawful for the manual record to be destroyed, once digitised. Please note that if shredding the manual record, the company doing this should provide you with a certificate of destruction.
More information regarding digitisation of records can be found here, and more detailed information including a FAQs can be read here (FutureNHS login required).
The long-term plan is for a national scheme to bulk digitise and shred the legacy manual records. If a practice needs to do this more quickly, then the guidance is that this should be funded locally via the ICB.
In the interim, practices could consider:
1) Not creating a Lloyd George envelop for new babies or patients who are registering with an NHS practice for the first time.
2) Scanning and shredding legacy manual records where there is minimal content.
Please note that in the exceptional circumstance when the GP2GP transfer of a record has failed, the previous GP is required to printout the complete record and forward to the practice the patient has now registered with.