To think the NHS is far too secretive about our health records?

You'd need to blame political decisions imposed on the NHS for the variety of NHS data providers for community, acute and GP providers. Austerity years, dodgy contracts, localised commissioning and the rest.

It's digital in my trust...I was still sent imaging on CDs (I couldn't view) and paper copy records

Legally the notes are the property of the NHS. Procedures in place are actually to protect you. I work in ED and the number of times I have had people call up trying to get information, pretending the patient is their relative, even the police call demanding I release information, journalists try it too….ive even had the family of the assailant try to get information about a victim of an attack.
the procedures in place are to protect you, surely all the security in place is a good thing? even healthcare workers have to go through this to access their own notes. Nothing is 100% secure online, no apps, even facial recognition (this can’t tell me and my sister apart and we aren’t even close in age).

What exactly is it you are trying to do? I use My Chart. I also work in digital health app development (though nothing to do with this one). It generally works really well compared to most apps. But I don’t quite understand what it is you are trying to access. I have cancer, so a lengthy hospital record and I don’t have any trouble accessing any of it. Certainly haven’t needed to submit a SAR for anything!

It really pisses me off too.
when my infant dd was in hospital for her third stay in 2 months, I asked the nurse on her last day (when we were expecting/hoping she would be discharged) if they could show me the records of her stay.
he seemed surprised, went away and came back to say no, it wasn’t allowed. What the fuck! Who had a better right to know whatever was contained there!?
he offered to explain anything I was unsure of instead, but the point was I was so frazzled and sleep deprived and shell shocked that I couldn’t retain or process much aurally and just wanted to read and get everything straight in my head- the timeline, changing diagnoses etc. and of course he didn’t know anything anyway, having just come on shift that morning.

As someone who has a history of SA and related abortions and STDs from my younger years I am glad medical records are so difficult to access. So I voted Yabu. Although I get it must be frustrating.

I can see all of my letters, referrals, notes, blood and test results etc in Patient Access - is this a thing you can sign up for? I've had access to it since my old GP in a different city but stuff from my currrent GP in a different area is all on there, including stuff going back to when I was a kid. Is this the kind of stuff you want or do you want specific medics' notes about you?

https://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj.r2362

My trust uses Patient Knows Best...no imaging reports are ever loaded there.

Ah just seen you want a report. That kind of thing is available in Patient Access for me - like letters back from consultants to my GP, etc. So I'd maybe see if you can use your NHS number to sign up for that!

My scan reports are on My Chart as it’s part of the hospital record. But letters and diagnoses, if that’s what you’re after, will likely be on your NHS app as they are part of primary care. I have literally everything I’ve ever been diagnosed with back to well past digital records on my NHS app and every letter sent from every consultant appointment to my GP. None of that would be on a patient facing hospital app though because it’s not how the system works. If I need consultant letters and scan reports that are too old to be on My Chart, I go via my consultants’ secretaries or the nurse specialists as they do most of the hospital admin. Otherwise, the recent scans are there for me to read. I think they are under tests.

One thing I would recommend though is killing them with kindness. No one is going to do you a favour if you’re coming at them like this. You need to get on people’s good sides. Make friends with the secretaries. Be cheerful and respectful. It gets things done, trust me.

Yanbu OP. However I believe that it is purposely difficult to avoid the litigation the NHS would face if it were easy. They rely on people’s lack of time/ patience/ ability to wade through the administrative hoops they set to avoid exposure. I’ve had my chart snatched off me by nurses in hospital as “that’s confidential and not for you!!! You must not touch this!” - it’s literally the log of my health and charts my wellbeing and stats. If I understand it , even if I don’t, I should be able to read it. The SAR will include reams more than you need which again will serve to deter people who don’t have the time/ resilience / patience- it’s another hurdle. If they were to just give you the pertinent information your complaint would be easily proved/ disproved.

It may not take that long. The legislation says information has to be provided within 28 days. How soon you get it depends on how easy it is to procure and compile. I appreciate you are frustrated but nobody is "dicking around" and delaying anything. There are real people putting together your information and there may be dozens if not hundreds of patients waiting for the same.
I am not sure why you think this is some conspiracy that NHS is engaging in deliberately. There is a reasonable explanation for why it may take some time (but not necessarily full 28 days).

Is the report back? I have cancer so I have urgent CT and MRI scans every 3 months. They take about 3 weeks to come back to the consultant. The consultant needs to review them. They may need to discuss them in the MDT and then they get released to you. It’s too soon. I think you are spiralling here and not thinking clearly about how the system works. Everyone thinks their case is the most urgent one. But there will be very ill people who have to come before you. Those people get reports back in 24-48 hours. But for a normal person, I’d expect 3 weeks for the report to even land on their desk.

Who ordered the scan? Generally the report is returned to them.

You are the subject of the records but that doesn’t make you the owner m. These rules are in place to protect you.

For the love of god!
The government passes the laws which outline every organisation's responsibilities in regars to data governance. Data protection act 2018 and data act 2025.
Then, the information commissioner's office outlines procedures for how data should be released. If you've never heard of them, you can look on their website page
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/

This is all done before we even get to the NHS. Individual trusts then take the law and the guidance from ICO and create information governance policy. I don't know what's so "purposefully difficult" about signing a bit of paper and showing your ID. But if you suspect your trust is withholding information from you, contact ICO.

This is why the NHS is always damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. Like so much in so much of the public sector, efficiency isn't possible because of extra safeguards in place to prevent unlikely-but-possible bad stuff happening.

In this case the ease with which you should be able to access your own health records goes out the window because of laws to prevent the off chance of someone nicking them. Yesterday there was a thread on here about Benedict's Law, one of very many First Name's Laws that mean extra cost and worry for public sector bodies to try and reduce low risk to no risk. We have asked for all this stuff, and this is the annoying consequence.

I know DHs passcode to his phone. Which means I can access his passwords app. Does that make me entitled to access his medical records because he signed up for an app? This is why extra steps exist - so that people who want to steal your phone don’t have it too easy.

I've been on the receiving end of an abusive & coercively controlling individual who stalked me electronically eg accessing my apps.

Their processes have to be absolutely watertight to protect people.

Also think about data breaches eg M&S who lost customer details to a hacker. Instead of your shopping history that could be your confidential medical history & that could be used against you, made public etc

Call your GP, they can see it all. I had cancer and get passed around the post a lot but if I’m ever in need of a letter or results I just go via the GP.

Have you spoken to your gp since? They would have received your discharge summary and can refer you back to the relevant clinic who would review your scan report with you and determine any action. The scan report alone won’t really help you decide. Are you still suffering symptoms?

I can’t use the NHS app because I have not been able to set it up. I always fail at the verification stage. Luckily I can use My Chart and the GP website. I understand the requirement to be secure but it defeats me each time I try.