Health Records
Access to Medical Records to include SARs requests (BMA Guidance Update October 2018)
This guidance sets out a range of circumstances in which health professionals may receive, and respond to, requests for access to health records. It reflects the common enquiries received by the BMA. The...
Written: 06th March 2025
Update: 2024/25 Capacity and Access Improvement Payment (CAIP) Online Access Component
I am writing to update all colleagues now the final month of the 2024/25 financial year has arrived.
As colleagues will recall the three components of the 2024/25 CAIP, collectively...
Patients Recording Consultations
Patients are legally allowed to record consultations with their GP for personal use, and this does not breach GDPR rules. While covert recordings can feel intrusive and undermine trust, practices cannot legally prevent such recordings. Patients may even share...
This guide is designed to provide GP practices with the support and guidance required to offer patients online access to their detailed coded record. It is intended as a generic guide as there may be differences in the actual process according to the clinical system that the practice has in...
GMS/PMS Regulations and guidance do not make any reference to an age at which patients become eligible or entitled to view their own records independently.
However, it is generally accepted that:
“Fraser/Gillick-competent” children are entitled to access their medical records (or authorise...
Summary Care Record Factsheet - The SCR is a secure, electronic patient record that contains key information derived from patients’ detailed GP records.
Clinical use of the Summary Care Record – provides key clinical information to health professionals in emergency and unplanned care scenarios,...
Access to Health Records
The BMA has published guidance on Access to Health Records (August 2014) which can be used to respond to requests for access to health records, to find out what a health record is, to get advice on record-keeping and know how to deal with requests about living patients,...
Online access by patients
Online access to health records by patients appears to have much wider associated risks and potential workload for practices than the transactional on-line services of appointment booking and prescription ordering.
NHS England has confirmed that practices are not...
Written: 15 January 2025
Update: Prospective Access to Medical Records
I am writing as a number of practices have contacted the LMC noting they had received recent communications from their ICB about their provision of Prospective Access to Medical Records.
Colleagues will recall the furore...
