Your health and care records contain information like:
- basic personal details and contact information
- health conditions
- treatments and medicines
- summaries of your stays in hospital
- allergies and past reactions to medicines
- tests, scans and X-ray results
- information about your care
- lifestyle information, such as whether you smoke or drink
- future appointments
Your health and care records are confidential and only staff who need to can see the confidential information in your records.
You have the right to see your health and care records. You should contact the NHS or social care service who holds the record to find out how to do this. You can also provide written consent for other people to access your record.
You can see the information in your GP record via the NHS app or NHS website, by using online services provided by your GP or by contacting your GP surgery.
If you find the information in your health and care record difficult to understand, including specialist terms or abbreviations, the NHS or social care service that holds the record should be able to explain it to you.
If you think that any information in your health and care record is missing or incorrect you should contact the NHS or social care service that holds the record. You can also contact them to update any personal information in your records (such as your address or next of kin details).
You can only see someone else's records if you're authorised to do so. To access someone else's records, you must:
- be acting on their behalf with their consent, or
- have the legal authority to make decisions on their behalf (called power of attorney), or
- have another legal basis for access
A request for someone's health and care records should be made directly to the NHS or social care service that holds the record. This is known as a Subject Access Request (SAR). Many NHS and social care services have Subject Access Request forms that you can complete and return to them by email or by post. These can normally be found on the organisation’s website.