To think my medical notes are confidential

[jessicathecat]

I was recently in hospital and dp picked up my medical notes and started casually leafing through them

He got all huffy when i asked him to stop! Was i being unreasonable?

MIL did this with my pregnancy notes. It included detail of a termination. I was gobsmacked she read them without permission and don't trust her now.

YANBU It's way overstepping a line.

The normal should always prevail. Notes at the end of the bed to help people treat the sick are and always will be the way to go. If however you have a nosey partner, mother in law etc. then that is your particular problem, whilst upsetting for you of course.

To add insult to injury, my sister who is a doctor rang to speak to the ICU doctor and they couldn't disclose anything to her as she isn't next of kin, so all information had to be relayed through dopey bastard ex on the phone and her questions then relayed back through him to the ICU doctor. So now half the country knows every fucking medical detail there is to know about me thanks to know-it-all.

Can you tell he's my ex?

OP, can I go one better and tell you that all my medical details were blabbed all over facebook and on the phone to his stupid idiotic family (let's call them the gossip family). Everyone in his home town and his hundreds of stupid facebook 'friends' now know more about my time in ICU than I know myself.

Hmmm, on the fence here.

On the one hand, I would want my partner to have all information so he could fully support me if I was in hospital. Especially as I know that mistakes can happen, and yes I would expect him to be on my side. I’ve been in hospital, nursing staff have made errors and even being unkind. I’d want an advocate.

OTOH, the PP whose mil read about her abortion, this was totally out of order.

Regarding the OP I think this is about your partners attitude to you/your weight generally - not about the medical notes.

I have the answer there OP. Go private then you can dictate whether your notes are at the end of your bed or not.

If he was here now I'd slap him. (I wouldn't. But I would want to. Disclaimer - I do not condone violence).

Another odd thing I experienced when in hospital (different occasion) was a male neighbour from childhood who was a ward assistant or something, not a nurse, but not a cleaner if ykwim? He came around and asked me whether I had a bowel movement. I told him that I hadn't (I'd had diarrhoea about 5 times!). There should be some sort of system where you don't have to have non-doctors involved in your care who you know in real life.

For all the people saying they don't want their partner knowing their weight why do you agree to be weighed ? I hadn't weighed myself for about 20 yrs prior to this May , and if I went to a hospital appt I always said no to weight . I knew I was overweight and prefer to judge by how my clothes fit . I started weighing myself in May because I was ill and needed to know , we still don't own scales though , dh and I have a fortnightly weigh in at my mums ( I've lost 3 stone due to illness , he's lost a lb in moral support).

Why are any notes left at the end of the bed? This seems pretty unreasonable in and of itself.

Think about it logically JohnHunter.

On admission they need to know your weight to see if you're losing weight rapidly maybe? Also certain meds I've been given are measured based on your weight (anaesthetics and others).

hiddley , that was the point I was making about random nurses and care workers having access to my actual notes , particularly as I was an inpatient within the trust that I left 2 yrs ago , but had worked for 30years . At one point I was even on the ward that I had worked on , it was highly embarrassing , having people , some of whom I didn't particularly like , having access to my records.

If you don't want your dh reading your notes, that's your business. However you don't get to dictate how he should feel about you stopping him. I wouldn't ask to look at my Dh's records, nor would I expect him to ask to look at mine. If he did tell me to stop, I would question as to why. Obviously I would respect his decision and stop but it would fundamentally shift our relationship.

PP, if you don't want a particular member of staff to look after you then you can just ask the ward manager although every member of staff, qualified nurse or assistant, has to work to the same confidentiality rules and he was only doing his job, why lie about going to the toilet, it may have been very important. It's a tricky one, yes it can be a bit embarrassing if you know the staff but then again one day they may well be involved in saving your life. Staff who know patients often ask if it's okay that they look after them.
Some hospitals now have all documents locked away, including end of bed blood pressure charts etc.

Someone else has asked if notes have to be unlocked from the trolley in an emergency, yes, they do but usually if someone is very ill anyway then the doctors may well be reading their notes.
If people are happy to have their partners know their medical history then can't they just ask them about it instead.

Floralnomad, that would be highly embarrassing. I would absolutely hate that.

If they need to know it for anaesthetic reasons then they can write it on the anaesthetic notes , there is no reason for it to be in a file that is accessible by a bed . Same goes for admission notes , although they do need it for MUST scores the actual weight doesn't need writing to write down the score . The weight could again be written on more secure notes . That said I've had 3 hospital admissions this year and wasn't weighed at all , despite the fact that they knew I was losing weight .

Note to self: Update next-of-kin.

"Think about it logically JohnHunter"

I can see why it's convenient to the staff but it's practically asking for people to poke through them. A few posters in this thread have said their relatives looked through their notes and I can't say that I'm surprised.

If this thread is just about the observation chart, then that's not quite as bad. I've not seen a paper obs chart for years and had forgotten that some hospitals still haven't joined the 21st century.

Weight is important for drug calculations so should be on drug charts. It's also usual to weigh patients on admission so any loss or gain can be monitored.
Perhaps it would just be easier if all notes, bedside or doctors folders, be securely stored.

OP did your nosey DP/DH? (can't remember sorry) comment on your weight? In my experience they use kilos rather than stones and pounds, so he might not be able to convert it. Unless he googled and was that nosey and then admonished you for it?

Either way, I'm with you and would have told him to put them down as he wouldn't know a BP from an ECG. (my ex was particularly dozey).

I’d not be troubled by my husband reading my notes - no secrets here. He’d want me to read and interpret his notes.

If you don’t want to be weighed you don’t have to be. Just say no. It’s usually done within 24 hours of admission to complete a MUST tool to help identify malnutrition risks. Most younger adults without cardiac failure/eating disorder/kidney disease or other problem that causes short term weight gain related to fluid retention don’t need to be weighed unless they are having anaesthetic or weight dependent drug doses.
Most hospitals are now moving to electronic observation recordings and escalation of variance.

My trust is still paper based.

Our trust is mixed but mainly moved over to iPods .

Crumbs how about if you were in ICU and your DH blabbed every tiny daily detail about your status to all and sundry (the gossip family) for moral support? And you're in a bloody coma so can't stop him?

The end of the bed notes? I have no issue with dh reading those. My full medical file is different though