Please fill in this medical history form for all your family

[AmIATree]

Help the NHS out. Please fill in this Medical history form put together by a doctor friend. Here is the original thread and information on how to do it incase there are any changes.

www.facebook.com/510116623/posts/10158063405551624/

As cases start to peak, you will be seen by medical staff working tirelessly who won’t have time to get your notes / read your notes / you might be seen in non hospital buildings or at a different GP. Having a summary gives medical staff a great starting point. If you’re struggling to breathe it saves you answering and it also stops the amount of virus you are spreading over staff.

This helps if you’re in a car accident or have Coronovirus. Please fill it in even if you are well to help the, save time. The doctors will still check for themselves any important information, but please do this to help them and you. #helpthemhelpus #helptheNHS

If anyone has any hospital contacts/public health England contacts, please consider asking them to put something out as it will help save lives, of both patients and staff.

[AmIATree]

🏥 Help the NHS out 🏥

This isn’t official NHS or PHE advice, so please always check for and follow any official updated guidance. I am the first to say most facebook shared health advice is rubbish. 111.nhs.uk/covid-19/

As routine surgeries and clinics get cancelled we need to look after ourselves more. Going to A&E should be for absolute emergencies anyway, but other routine medical conditions and emergencies will still continue to happen, as well as Coronavirus infections, and people will still continue to be treated. The staff looking after you are doing their best, but they might be looking after you in non hospital buildings and they might not have access to your usual hospital notes/GP records or clinic letters and results as they would usually. Or they might be working for a different GP practice or hospital to your usual. They might not have the time initially to go and get your notes and read through 3 folders worth and they won’t be a specialist in your condition.

So let’s help them help you. Making a single page (or pages) print out of your medical history as you understand it (or clear hand written if you don’t have a printer) and making several copies will help them out. If you get admitted you possibly won’t be allowed to have anyone accompany you who would usually help you out with details. They can take one copy in A&E for example and then you have another to keep on you. You can add to it, but try and keep the “highlights” in brief and you can expand on things later on.

Even if you are completely healthy, just saying “I am a marathon runner with a resting heart rate of 50 and on no medications” with your name etc is actually helpful as well. It will help even if you go in for “just” a broken arm. This list isn’t set in stone or what everyone needs to write, so adapt it to your own health conditions and add or delete as you think is relevant to you. It’s just meant as a starting guide. Also don’t be offended if the medical team do want to double check any information you have written. If you don’t know the official name of something, give as much information as you can. Spelling doesn’t matter, as long as you write it as it sounds/you understand it, it is enough of a guide for the medical team to ask you the right questions about it.

If you do go to hospital, (as you should anyway) take all your medications with you. They won’t have time to find them in pharmacy for you immediately. Write down the times of the day you usually take things, not just “once a day”. A copy of your GP repeat prescription is also helpful if you have it. Include any specific care plans for your health conditions and copies of recent letters if you think they will help guide treatment. But an A&E doctor isn’t going to want to know you had one stitch on your little finger when you were 7 as the most important bit of information and they won’t be able to read through 40 pages of attached clinic letters. If you have a medical condition meaning you might be in the more vulnerable group, consider packing a hospital bag (or writing a list of things to pack at short notice) of PJs/clothes for hospital and basic toiletries etc as you won’t be able to have any visitors bring you things as would normally happen. This is especially important if you live on your own.

I’ll add the text in a comment so you can copy and paste it to adapt it for you.

*Edited to add, talking less is better for you when breathless and less likely to spread Coronavirus to the health care professionals. Thanks Brad!

*Editd to add - Yes phone apps and medical alert bracelets are useful, but phoning a number/looking at a website takes time. Also phones are a contamination risk. Having this on your lap makes it easier for everyone.

[wrongsideofhistorymyarse]

Thank you. I was going to do something similar as I live alone and it's helpful to know precisely what they need.

[CatTangle]

Thanks for posting this x

[PicsInRed]

In the heat of battle triage, I'm afraid they're as likely to read through that as a birth plan.

I would ensure I was wearing any medic alert bracelet, if applicable.

[Notwiththeseknees]

On the face of it it seems very sensible. Even if the HCP prefers to ask as their layout is different, it is a good aide memoire for us personally and will save lots of umming, ahhhing and head scratching. Trying to remember detailed stuff in a stressful situation is much more difficult.

[AmIATree]

@PicsInRed it was reviewed by a consultant A&E doctor who is trying to get it picked up and spread, but PHE and him are rather busy.

That is the whole point of it, it’s a triage situation, whether you have coronavirus or break your arm or have a heart attack. Having basic information means the doctors can act quicker to save your life and get through more people.

Medic alert bracelet help, but they don’t contain much information and there isn’t time to log onto a website/phone a number and no medical staff will want to touch a persons phone to read information which will likely be carrying the virus.

With a birth plan, you already have the patients medical notes with the patient, the pregnant woman carried them around so whatever emergency happens and wherever she goes they have this information.

[YesItsMeIDontCare]

I realise this might be a stupid question, but why is a piece of paper that you've been handling less of a risk than a phone?

[AmIATree]

The paper can be put in a plastic pocket, has likely been in a bag and just brought out. All the information is clearly there to read. A phone might need you to unlock it, with an unconscious patient or can’t talk they can’t tell you the code and it locks again every 2min. Phones are infection hot spots as people hold a door handle, get infected and play with their phone. They then wash their hands and get their infected phone back out and reinfect.

Paper can have a photocopy made if it/put in the patients notes.

Doctors can annotate it and cross things out/correct spelling and then put in notes/make a copy.

Phone batteries die/patients want to keep their phones on them and a doctor/nurse walking off with their phone isn’t ideal. If they put it down it can be picked up by someone else and no one has their name written on their phone so won’t know who’s it is.

[AmIATree]

Also the virus has been shown to love for a shorter time on cardboard and live longer on plastic and metal.

[AmIATree]

Love? Live!

[PegLegAntoine]

I liked the idea of this when I saw it on FB but my initial thought is it’s too long. I would have thought a few of the most vital details would be better than a long list that may make people think “nope no time to read all that”

[AmIATree]

@PegLegAntoine
Even if people just fill in the basics, the idea is to adapt and delete as needed. Like the line that just says “I am healthy and on no medication and these are my vitals” is enough for the staff to not to have to root through all the questions to find out if they have anything/medications and start treatment and move to the next. Especially in the view of the field hospitals being built, hospital records aren’t going to be accessed.

And I hope after this everyone agrees to the national hospital and GP data base.

A smaller one can be added, but this is all the information that a doctor has to take from a patient when admitting them. Even if one person fills in it, it saves enough time for the medical staff that they can spend 15mins longer saving the next patient unable to breath or having a heart attack.

[Absentwomen]

As someone who's in the shielded group, (unstable angina) I keep my discharge summaries from previous hospital stays to give to paramedics.

It contains a shortened version of cormobities and a detailed summary of my health.

[Cockatiel]

Sorry, I'll ask for this to be deleted. I appreciate it might be upsetting to read for those in vulnerable groups

[AmIATree]

@cockatiel I didn’t see what you posted.

@Absentwomen great! Anything similar or any little amount is going to be a huge help and also a great idea. It’s not prescriptive, just a starting point for people to share and help out.

[LittleLittleLittle]

@Cockatiel can you reword it?

OP you reminded me that I have to take set up a bag and put in it a card about one of my conditions.

[Menora]

I don’t want to pee on your parade but this is basically what a summary care record is and most emergency services can access it electronically. It is also medically accurate

Is this for if you were found alone and unconscious?

[Menora]

digital.nhs.uk/services/summary-care-records-scr

[Menora]

Also sorry but this is just going to make people call their GP surgery for info

I think it’s a terrible idea

If you want your SCR and are vulnerable you can have this at your house if you want it

[AmIATree]

@Menora speaking to A&E staff, they wanted this put out for when patients rocked up at A&E unable to breath dropped off by family or the local field hospital. Rural areas struggle for ambulances at the best of times, they can’t magically bring in 50 ill people at once. People aren’t going to be arriving by ambulance and in the usual fashion of their details called up, they might be out of area. This was requested to be shared by an A&E consultant.

The current thinking is it that public health England won’t put something like this out officially as they think it will panic the public/what if someone puts something wrong down etc. So doctors are trying to get this shared to shave patient lIves and protect staff.

If you have a printed summary great, if you have similar great, if you have a GP print out great. As long as you have something and don’t assume that where you go will have the usual level of access to your records and a computer terminal then great.

[Menora]

You don’t print the summary out
The paramedic/A&E doctor looks at it on the NHS portal. Even I can look at anyone’s in the U.K. via the portal if I have their details
It is a central record of all of this info

This is just not needed. There is already a solution

[Menora]

not that I would ever look at anyone’s as this is audited, but I can look at anyone’s if I had to

Is what I should have said

[AmIATree]

@menora it was designed for people to not call their GP.

It is information you know about yourself (name, age, care needs) and worded to write it as to write it how you know to save medics time. No where does it say contact your GP. If you aren’t able to write this information yourself for whatever reason - disabled/elderly/child then I would hope you had someone in your life who would do it for you. We have done so for elderly relatives to give them the best chance. Sure, it’s not medically accurate, but if they get admitted far from us it has their basic details, our details, and their rough medical history. Anyone with anything significant like a heart attach/asthma/diabetes surely knows their diagnosis enough to to write it down.

If all a patient knows is “I take blood pressure tablets” and they write that down, then thats enough of a head start for doctors/nurses/students/army staff seeing patients.

[Menora]

This is such a weird post

No one would turn up at A&E without being triaged by the ambulance crew. Who all have hand held devices to look at patient summary care records and enter vital stats etc

This is then transferred over to the hospital staff when they are accepted into hospital.

So everyone will already have their medical info at the point of contact
A scrawled handwritten half filled out bit of paper is going back 29 years into when things were not very accurate!