The government planned to have GPs make all patient records from 1/12/22 onwards automatically accessible to any patient over the age of 16.
The profession has been discussing this scheme with government for several years.
We have no issue with patients having access to their records and already provide this on request. Patients also have a legal right under the Data Protection Act to access a static and redacted copy of their records.
However, this is very different to continuous automatic ongoing access to everything.
Our records hold more than just your pure medical records, they contain working diagnoses, discounted diagnoses, aide memoires, reminders, observations, and references as well as the clinical content. They may also contain information about 3rd parties. The government believes we should modify the way we record these things, including the pure clinical content, so as they are more easily understood by patients, less jargon. We disagree, we believe we should use the language of our profession in the same way a structural engineer or a policeman would.
This means there may be elements of a patient record that might cause concern or confusion unless they are deciphered and explained. The third-party elements cannot be shared without their consent.
GPs are currently acknowledged as being under considerable national pressure and as we only receive on average 35 requests for access per month, we do not believe we should divert valuable resource to cleansing the 4900+ registered patient’s records we have, to enable this turn on.
As Data Controllers of your records, we have responsibilities as well as powers, one of which is to decide whether to allow processing. We are grateful for the Government making this functionality available, but we do not have the capacity to undertake the work needed to provide it wholesale from 1/12/22. We believe this should be made available on request, on a first come first served basis, so that we can deal with the issues raised above on an individual basis. If you want this sort of access, we will happily provide it as soon as we are able and after we have confirmed that you understand exactly what is being offered and why.
This approach has been endorsed and is supported by our LMC and the British Medical Association.
