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

They are the hospital’s notes, not yours. They are notes someone wrote about you but they aren’t yours.
It’s good they are secure and hard to access without definite proof of identity.

What sort of scan? If it was a CT or MRI it will have been ordered under a drs name, even if you don't know who. And it may have been released to the Dr treating you in A&E, to get your underway with treatment, but it's not reported until it's been reviewed by a radiographer. Only then will it be on MyChart because it's the radiographers report that makes it 'official'.

I was going to ask how long ago it was. IME reports take a lot longer to get put on there than blood tests. I’ve never had the result of a CT/XRay or MRI on there in 2 weeks.

Blood tests, discharge letters and letters from consultants yes. Actual reports they aim for about 6 weeks in our trust.

Christ this is a lot of drama for a scan on some gallbladder stones/sludge.

Usually theres a seperate department to request images from. Its data protection and information governance. They arent hiding your records from you

Alternatively contact your GP and they can probably see the scan report

Ive been frustrated about this before as well. My DS had some tests at Guys hospital and they said it should take 2-4 weeks to get the report. I normally get cc'd a copy of them. DS had a consultant follow up 8 weeks later in our local hospital as was due to have surgery based on these results.

7 weeks later and still no test results. I spoke to the consultants secretary and she didnt have them. So I called the department that did the tests and they said they had sent the report to the consultant. Went back to the secretary who still didnt have them. Went back to the testing department and asked if they could send again or send them to me directly. They said they couldnt send them to me but only to the requesting consultant (even though i had always been cc'd before).

Guys said the only thing i could do was to do a SAR to access the report so I could then send it to the consultant in time for my appointment. It arrived just in time. Absolutely ridiculous. So I sent the results to the consultant.

Went to the consultants appointment and they still said they didnt have them! Luckily I had foreseen this and printed out a copy to take with me otherwise it would have been a wasted appointment, and likely delayed the surgery as well.

It was literally just a Word attachment on an email. How is it that difficult to email a document from one hospital to another? The fact I had to do a SAR to get the information was ridiculous. If I hadnt it would have been a wasted appointment and a waste of NHS resources. Just seems crazy that as the parent of the child that the tests/surgery is about and I am his parent and carer I am not allowed to be given his test results. And a waste of NHS time when all they needed to do in the first place was email me or cc me on the email.

Just to add that I have private healthcare and get emailed all my test results and health information by encrypted email. If private hospitals can do it why cant the NHS?

YABU, our personal data SHOULD be difficult to get to avoid strangers accessing it. As for complaining about the 28 day SAR wait! Do you think you are the only patient?? The 28 days is set by law not by the NHS and it allows data processors time to gather the information.
You sound incredibly naive about data protection and very impatient.

Meanwhile all the GDPR protection is to ask your name, DOB and address. All public knowledge facts. I pretend to be my husband (with his permission) to talk to the doctors all the time for him and they never even question why ‘mans name’ sounds like a young woman

There is a process for getting this stuff and it is always slow. Understaffed I guess - but I would rather funds went to frontline staff TBH.

If you only had a scan two weeks ago are you certain there is a full report yet? If you were diagnosed and discharged from ED your scan might still be in the system for full review by radiology and reporting. Initial reporting especially if out of hours/weekend will look for acute causes and treatment, not take a longer term view.

The report should also have been sent to your GP. Could you contact them?

Yes but they either trust the security processes they put in place when setting up their app and giving us information to some of our data - in which case give us all of it.

or they don’t feel it’s secure enough in terms of data privacy - in which case why give access to any sensitive medical data?

Not according to the law.

Same as a police statement that you've signed, you can only get a copy via a SAR. All sorts of public bodies may have reports etc. about you, but they won't just hand them out willy nilly.

It’s because these records are very confidential and this is completely right to make sure the information is going to the correct person. Imagine if someone else could access your records!

Firstly, every test requested in hospital will have a named consultant, even if you didn't see them, this is how it works, in the same way that a manager in a shop is ultimately responsible for staff conduct and decisions, even they didn't meet you, someone appropriately qualified is ultimately responsible for the care you get in hospital.

The restrictions on access are there to protect your privacy, and it's not just the NHS, it's the government and in some cases, the EU that were responsible for these laws being passed. This is not just a UK/Europe thing - in the US there is HIPAA. The risks of providing a required process to access your records are much less than the risks of that information being released to someone with no legitimate reason for access.

You may also not be aware that your health records have to be checked for information about 3rd party data before they are released, or we have breached that 3rd party's right to privacy. For example - separated parents, NRP requests access to child's records, but the records contain information about RP's address or information about the RP that should not be disclosed.

(Edit: information can also be withheld from your notes if there is a concern that the specific information may be harmful to the person requesting the notes - this is incredibly rare though)

If you have attended hospital then there will 100% be things in your record that aren't visible on the app - nursing notes would be the most obvious thing, but also more detailed notes about assessment and conversations with other healthcare professionals, so having access on the app is not the same as seeing your entire record.

While I appreciate that you want to know ASAP, a 4 week timeframe is not unreasonable, especially in the circumstances that you have outlined.

I hope that you get the information that you need soon.

She IDed herself to get into the app. They're just making it harder for her.
YANBU OP.

you may disagree but that doesn’t mean you are right

But she was already in the app where all her confidential information already is!

Once your gp has received the report it will be uploaded to your records and visible on the app. You can chase this by ringing the department and asking to send them across asap. We need the SAR & ID for legal auditing purposes. We'd get slammed by CQC if we didn't have this in place.

Your problem is that you're thinking about the NHS as a homogeneous blob of an institution. You imagine that the different departments have good communication, that the IT systems are joined up, the the infrastructure has been stress tested, that it functions effectively and and efficiently. It doesn't.
Half of it is outsourced, contracts go to the lowest bidder. Integration between systems, processes, teams is patchy to non existent.

So you provided ID for an app, and made a request through that app. It would make logical sense that the approved ID check on the app could be passed on to the process that pulls up your record and sends it to you. But in practice it won't function like that. Blame capaltism, blame the dismantling of the NHS, blame the people selling it off in chunks to private business. Blame the rich and the media for pushing a narrative.