Can I get medical records from GP?

tawecdl

Here's my situation...

My daughter was really ill a couple of years ago. We took her to the docs and they said to give her calpol and let her rest. We tried but she got worse so we took her to an emergency doctors in the middle of the night. They said just give her calpol. A couple of days went by and she was still ill. She was taken to the docs again.. this went on. I started to feel like I was worrying over nothing and wasting docs time. at this point we had taken her 6 times in about 4-5 days. Then the following morning she got a rash, this worried us terribly so we took her to the hospital. They looked at her straight away and said "take her home and tank her up on calpol and fenny (nuforen)". I was relieved but still worrying. the following day I was at work when I had a phone call, my daughter was taken to hospital and had meningitis. I rushed to the hospital and just remember loads of doctors putting needles in her, taking blood out. She looked lifeless. It was only that my mother was insistant that she saw a paediatrition that this was noticed as the doc just told her to go home with calpol. She was in hospital for a week and it was horrible. We were told she was close to death and she could have some long term damage.

The paediatrition wrote a letter of complaint to our GP for not noticing it. They called a meeting with us and just stated "She didn't have it when I saw her!" We couldn't prove this but were just happy for her to be alive.

What I want to know is if I can see all the records relating to this and making an official complaint if indeed something was missed.

wannabe_a_mum

Yes, you can ask to see the records.

You will need to make a request in writing asking for records for the period concerned or from the first day you took her to the GP to date. They will send you copies of all the records. You will have to pay though - ranges from around £15 to £70, but if you keep the receipt, I 'm sure if you take things further you may be able to reclaim this from somewhere.

Might also be worth requesting the same from the hospital.

I've just requested mine from the hospital and had peace of mind for something that was bothering me - paid £75 for the privilege!

HTH

tawecdl

Well we took her to:
-local GP
-Emergency Doctors Surgery
-Hospital

and she was turned away from all!

The worst thing for me is that in the emergency doctors there was a leaflet on meningitis. I thought she had similar symptoms but her rash dissappeared under a glass.

Turns out that it does dissappear under a glass at first. It's when it doesn't dissappear when you could be in trouble.

What do you think the outcome would be, I would like an appology but I dont wanna pay £70 for one.

calleyw

wannabe_a_mum wrote: »

I've just requested mine from the hospital and had peace of mind for something that was bothering me - paid £75 for the privilege!

HTH

Thought £50 was the max you could be charged.



Yours


Calley

Savvy_Sue

I think if you're prepared to just read them on-site and take notes from them you can't be charged nearly as much. Would that be enough?

PasturesNew

Cheapest way to do it is: make a doctor appointment. When they put the records in your hand read them

Nicki

Do you have a PALS in your area? Is this the kind of thing they are supposed to help with?

I know you are very upset and shocked by what happened to your daughter, but the fact that she was seen by so many doctors over this period, and none of them spotted the meningitis, does tend to suggest that in its early stages it was hard to diagnose. Doctors are only legally negligent if they miss something which a reasonable doctor would have picked up. If half a dozen doctors all saw your child and didn't see it, it would be very hard to argue they were all negligent. Some things are just very hard to diagnose in the early stages, and it sounds like the rash only appeared at the end, which obviously made things easier for the paediatrician. I only raise this because I think it is very unlikely that you will get an apology for what happened, so maybe you should only press ahead with looking at the records if you think that having a full understanding of exactly what happened will make you feel better.

Savvy_Sue

PALS would only deal with what happened at the hospitals, I think for your GP you'd have to approach the PCT.

With PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison Service) you would not have to put your complaint in writing - in fact they're not a complaints service but they do aim to resolve problems and improve practice.

Even if you did want to go down the formal complaints route you don't have to do this in writing: this would be discriminatory. LondonDiva (who knows far more about this and should get the credit!) has pointed out elsewhere that writing helps you get things straight, but just picking up the phone and saying "I want to make a complaint" should trigger a formal process. Whether it gives the result you want is another matter - I'd start with PALS personally.

honeypop

PasturesNew wrote: »

Cheapest way to do it is: make a doctor appointment. When they put the records in your hand read them

I didn't realise any surgeries did this anymore, the ones I have used either pass the records straight to the doctor or have the notes on the computer.

I thought it might be to stop people just reading their records and getting the wrong end of the stick sometimes as they don't understand what's written! I'd love them to hand me mine so I could have a nosey, even though I know what I've been in for.

OP, your doctors surgery should have a list of services you can pay for displayed and the price will be on there. Eg it says things like, written statement of illness £5, copy of medical records £25, statement of fitness for work £10 etc...
Then you will be able to get a copy of her records. I'm not sure if they'd let you read them on site for free though.
Although, you don't need them to see something was missed, it clearly was as they didn't pick up on it, so I would make the complaint anyway and they may check themselves to see what the notes said.

tawecdl

She was lifeless and had a rash when we went to the GP, she sent us home and said nothing to worry about. Even the paedeotrician wrote her a letter saying she should have sent her to hospital with a rash unless she could've 100% said it wasn't meningitis.

What my arguement is, she was ill for about a week continuously and then was diagnosed with meningitis. Why did no doctor gp etc cancel this possibility out before the paedeatrician diagnosed her?

li'l_p

Why doesn't this surprise me.....????

My sister died in 1977 (before I was born) through meningitis, at a time when there was very little known and publicised about the disease. However, even now with the publicity that meningitis gets, hospitals are still willing to turn a blind eye. I know they can't dole out antibiotics to everyone that rushes in with a child with a fever, but when we're talking about a kid with a rash and various other symptoms which in my view blatently pointed at meningitis.

I would definitely pursue this with the Health Authority. Too many people don't get appropriate treatment, resulting in uncessary deaths, especially in this so called 'modern era'. It just shouldn't be happening.