Is it possible to get your childhood nhs record?

[floralwallpaper]

Just that really. Im trying to piece together some things from childhood and my health records will almost definitely help me. TIA

Have you spoken to your GP?

Most likely. I gave birth to my DC at the hospital that I was born in and they had a brown cardboard file for me going back to the year that I was born in.

It depends upon what type of records you are looking for as to how long they should be kept and how old you are now.

In general the NHS should not be keeping records for longer than 30 years but there are retention periods for all types of healthcare records. Hope the link below helps but otherwise you can ask for all your records from the NHS via a subject access request.

www.igt.hscic.gov.uk/KnowledgeBaseNew/Surrey%20HIS_Records%20Management%20Explained%20-%20Retention%20Schedules.pdf

If you've lived in one area and been seen sporadically through life, the odds are strong. If you've had redundant bits of file in different hospitals, they are likely to have been weeded out. Children, mothers and cancer patients have (or had?) their notes kept for longer because of a greater need to review back on history.

The records of my birth in hospital A where I later went as a teenager are more likely to exist than the ones from mid-childhood in hospital B. If the records from A have joined up with hospital C where I've had maternity records, they will end up surviving, but I can't see a reason why hospital B notes would ever have joined up in order to survive.

Depending on your age and when medical notes became more transferred, medical history is getting more joined up. That hadn't happened at the point I worked with medical notes about 20 years ago. I think at that point, 8 years was standard and about 16 for extended circumstances?

One of my cousins had obtained hers, her brother didn’t, but talking with him when my mum was in hospital, my sisters and I were able to tell him about a hospital admission he had when very small that he had no knowledge of. He was very ill and an inpatient for weeks, but his mother suffered mental health issues and my mum was his only visitor, which always seemed very hard on him.

Thanks all. My parents were very abusive to me in my childhood and I’d like to see what turns up on my medical records. I’ve gone nc with them but they are now trying to get to me mentally, turning up at my door shouting random abuse etc.
I want to know what’s happened to me. I know that someone else took me to hospital once because my mum wouldn’t and I needed to but I don’t recall the incident at all. I also know my family doctor had kept saying that me and my sister needed to be taken away from my parents but my parents managed to keep us each time.
Am thinking of moving away so want to do it before it’s too late while I’m still local. Just want to find my own peace mentally with it tbh.

I asked about this once at the GP, and was told that records were computerised from 1991, and that records from then onwards should be obtainable.

No idea how true that is, but wanted to share in case it proves useful.

I asked my GP about something specific from my medical records which went back to when I was born. At the time the records would have been about 25 years old and this was a few years ago. She seemed to locate them no problem, and I have moved GPs a few times. Definately worth asking.