Your Own Records/Your Children’s Medical Records
Access to copies of medical records is governed by the Access to Health Records Act 1990 and the Data Protection Act 1998.
This gives you the right to request full copies of your own medical records, or those of your children.
Contact the GP or Hospital which holds the records. They will tell you how to apply for them. You may be asked to fill in a form, or simply send a formal letter of request.
The copy records must be provided within 40 days of the date of your request.
You will be required to pay a fee for the copy records from each holder of records, but this cannot be more than £50 for each set of records.
Records created within 40 days before your request must be provided free of charge.
Someone Else’s Records
A ‘personal representative’ (i.e. executor or administrator) of someone else’s estate can apply for copies of the records of someone who has died. A litigation friend can apply for copy records of a relative, or dependent, who is learning disabled or mentally ill.
These requests are governed by the Access to Health Records Act 1990 and the Data Protection Act 1998.
The fee to be paid for the records depends upon the number and type of records which have to be copied, but again the maximum fee per request is £50. Records include radiology (x-rays and scans) records and adverse incident statements and reports or root cause analyses.
Withholding Records
A doctor can only refuse to supply copy records on medical grounds, including the fact that the records might cause psychiatric injury to the patient or someone else, or if the records were created by another agency who has not been asked to consent to their release.
An example of this might be where there are Social Services records copied into the medical records, or sometimes there are letters from third parties, who have asked for them to be withheld from the patient, because they contain information that may be upsetting to the patient. In that case, the agency making disclosure has to tell you that such documents have been withheld, and who to ask for copies, so that you can ask the third party for copies direct. This will involve a further fee.
