Seeing an NHS consultant surgeon tomorrow - will he have access to all my NHS records?

[FarFlungKit]

Just that really. This is all within the NHS.

Obviously he or she will have the referral letter/history.

But would they also be able to access ALL my general NHS medical records online?

I’m not saying they would necessarily read them or want to read them.

But is it available to them, should they choose to peruse?

Anyone know for sure?

Many thanks in advance.

At my hospital they have access to test results that have been done at the hospital lab, for the GP and all my appointments etc at the hospital. GP appointment details are not shared on that system.

No, only the ones from
That particular trust.

Thanks everyone.

It seems the answer is “it depends”.

I’m happy with that.

Even if it's the same NHS hospital trust, there's no guarantee they have access to your records.

My OH with cancer was referred from one hospital to another after his initial chemo to see a specialist for a bone marrow stem cell transplant.

Despite being the same NHS trust, and it being a hospital in the next town just 20 miles away, the consultant had nothing but a single A4 referral letter which just gave the core details, i.e. date of diagnosis and treatment to date.

Complete waste of an appointment for us and him.

It will depend on the Trust and the mysterious wonders known as NHS IT. There are a few different patient records software systems doing the rounds and they don't fully link up together (despite shiny salesmen promising it that they will).

I'm in a community trust - we can't see the records from the local acute Trusts or GP surgeries (bane of my bloody life as they don't answer the phone to US either when we're chasing information) as they're on a different system to us - we can see limited information on our local shared portal but it's a bit hit or miss how much detail is on there.

Distance from the hospital to your GP makes no difference.

There is no one 'medical record'.

There are:
GP records
District nursing records (usually with other community based services eg physio and OT)
Mental Health records
Individual hospital trust records - and even within a trust different areas may be using different IT systems ... or one area uses multiple systems...

Some of these may be combined depending on how the local commissioning set up works. Or even more divided.

At most, people will read the entry before theirs, or their own last entry.

In my experience they take a new history Every Bloody Time. They might read other hospital notes but the chances of anyone looking at your GP record is slim to none-existent.

If the northern lights really loved me they would have been strutting their stuff at 8pm

I'd be impressed if they even read that and don't ask you why your there the moment you walk through the door
Going off the topic a bit I know, but asking the patient why they're there doesn't necessarily mean the clinician hasn't read the referral. I was always taught to get the history in the patient's own words as you learn a lot that way.

Psychiatry notes are usually completely separate from medical notes, even if it's all in the same hospital/trust.

Maternity notes are also separate, but might be summarised in your main notes.

There's no such thing as a truly "central" record, even at the GP surgery.

I could request all your notes from everywhere if I wanted to/needed to, but this would require effort on my part, and would still likely be missing something. It's highly unlikely anyone would do this for a routine appointment

Yep, I normally phrase it as “did your GP explain why they were referring you up to see us?” rather than “why are you here?”, which sounds a bit brusque.

But yes obviously I know why they are there, I want to know if the patient knows (they often don’t).

I genuinely am a doctor. Look back at my post history. I try not to offer medical advice. But practical tips such as bringing in notes I will share! Makes a big difference for patients and staff.