getting medical records

This link might be useful

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/HealthAndWellBeing/HealthServices/ManagingYourHealthcare/DG_10036450

Sparkly

*You are entitled to access your medical records from whoever has them under the Data protection Act

*Your new GP will have all your GP notes and hospital summaries - the transfer to the new practice takes about 6 weeks if everything runs smoothly. The hospitals will have full hospital info, so you'll need to apply directly to a hospital for them.

*On application, the practice / hospital can charge you up to £10 to view or for a copy up to £50 for cost of copying and time.

*Before you access the records, the practice / hospital should go through the notes & check if there is anything in there that you should not see (3rd party stuff / information given in confidence - so record that mrs H had an abortion would not be included in notes to next of kin if practice belive Mrs H would not have wanted them to know). They can take this out if they think it's appropriate and do not have to tell you about it, but would always have notes to justify the exclusion of notes. In most cases, where the requester is the patient, they review the information and will let it through.

*Most practices will then offer an appointment for you to go through the notes with you. It is considered good practice for someone to be there to explain the abbreviations of the text - but the amount of people who read something sisnister into being offered an appointment so the GP/Manager can be there with you is scary.

*they try to minimise altering / changing of records as much as possible. You can only ask that they alter the records for factual errors (Mrs X gave birth to a girl on 3 May, when actually Mrs X gave birth to a boy on 6 June). If there's something in the records you disagree with (they think you have mental health problems & you disagree) you can add a note to the specific bit you disagreee with stating why.