To fear a family member is accessing our medical records

[durdledoo]

I'm not really sure what to do about this and would love some practical advice to stop this potentially happening.
My mil is a nurse, she works at the local surgeries that me, my husband and my children attend. She has previously gone through my husbands medical notes before and confronted him on health complications he's had in the past and not told her about (this was a long time ago, but he was in his early twenties at the time).
A few comments recently has be concerned she's done it again. My husband had 2 drs apts and we only told her about one. She / fil has asked me several times now if dh is okay and asked about his second drs apt (that we haven't even discussed with them)
They know about one health issue and he's openly discussed it with them but the other is very private.
The other day mil said "how is dh, is he okay" and I just replied "yes, he went down and has been referred" (discussing said health issues we've told them about) and she said "well, he went down again didn't he?" Basically prying into the outcome of this second apt she should know nothing about.

I can't prove anything, but considering previous and the fact she's digging (a lot) and acting very stand off-ish I am legitimately concerned she's been at our medical notes (or at least dh's) but i wouldn't put it past her to look through all of ours. We've had lots of ongoing problems in the past with boundaries and the relationship has never been simple.

Is there anything I can do. Would loving surgery completely help? She works all over locally so I fear not.

Can we ask the surgery to make out information inaccessible to her?

Looking for some practical steps I could take to protect our privacy. There's absolutely no point raising this with her, she will inevitably deny it and previously when she went through her adult sons records he was the one "in trouble" for not telling her about his health concerns...

Why do you think this rather than thinking she has looked up his notes?

Because she is fishing and doesn't know what the appointment is for. There must be a zillion ways you can work out what is going on if you have a good idea about what should be happening. The appointment is obviously not what she expected.

I am a nurse. I have had colleagues be sacked for doing this. Once is enough to be sacked. You have to be able to demonstrate why you looked in a patient's records. Even if you don't know them, or they used to be in your care, but aren't now (wondering what happened next for instance isn't an accepted reason).

I think the fact it's DH's info and not yours is completely irrelevant and independent of him you have every reason to report it as it is your surgery with your notes.
If you overheard surgery staff chatting on a bus about anyone in their practice it would be perfectly valid to report that.

@incognitoforthisone

whenever one of us is remotely poorly they always know and she regularly comes round with various devices, tests, stuff she's taken from the surgery so she can give us her very own check up

I'm no expert but ... this also sounds like something a registered nurse should absolutely not be doing?!

Agreed. She's misappropriated NHS medical supplies from the practice and uses them to conduct examinations of family members in a non-clinical environment. To, presumably, give clinical advice.

It's a screaming breach of boundaries on many, many levels.

I note the OP says: I think she has asked if she can borrow stuff and bring it back. The Gp's allow it I don't believe this is true for a moment. I cannot imagine that the GPs would allow this, as it's appallingly unprofessional.

Given that her boundaries are that poor my assumption is that she will have been looking at your/your husbands records. Which is also appalling. I can only suggest phoning the practice manager and putting a block on them. Your husband will probably have to do this for himself, though.

Can people not read anymore

The op has stated she has made comments previously to this about dh health andwhy he didnt tell them himself

shes an abusive manipulator

@durdledoo hi op. My friend is a nurse, and as many pp have stated, notes are all electronically tracked now. I can understand why you don’t want to dob MIL in it, so just ask the practice to lock down your notes. You don’t have to say you think there has been a breach. Just that you would like it to be done. No drama or people losing jobs!

Of course you have grounds to complain, but I don’t think this is the solution you are looking for.

You can't block records if somebody is in a role where they need to access them. Which a nurse is. They can't keep her out of your records, it's professional probity and wanting to keep her job that should do that.
You could move practice or report it for investigation. If you ask them to block something they will investigate anyway.

@Northernlurker

You can't block records if somebody is in a role where they need to access them. Which a nurse is. They can't keep her out of your records, it's professional probity and wanting to keep her job that should do that. You could move practice or report it for investigation. If you ask them to block something they will investigate anyway.

But if that person is a family member it is perfectly reasonable to block access because they shouldn't be dealing with a family member at all.

@Northernlurker

You can't block records if somebody is in a role where they need to access them. Which a nurse is. They can't keep her out of your records, it's professional probity and wanting to keep her job that should do that. You could move practice or report it for investigation. If you ask them to block something they will investigate anyway.

I've see several threads like this on here and posters who wor in surgeries always say you can do this

The OP is never going to make an appointment with the MIL so there would never be a genuine need for her to see the records

I mean it's not physically possible to restrict a record, record access is restricted by role not ID. And it's not required anyway because accessing it is a straightforward sacking and report to professional body offence. If the audit trail shows she touched these records even once she will lose her job and her registration. I work in a nhs role, I could access anybody's records, nobody asks me whose records they should block. I can access anything but I never would because I value my families privacy and my job!

Just mention casually that Beverly Allit got caught due to the audit trail on the computer. Is it possible to raise a general concern about the practice with the Information Commissioner?

@pinkyredrose

Of course she's accessed his records, there's no way she'd know about the 2nd appt otherwise. You need to let the practice know, what she's doing is massively unethical and also illegal.

Isnt it more likely that a colleagues said- I saw your Jim when he was in yesterday?

TheHoptimist Then the colleague should be disciplined or fired.
I think some people don’t realise the law applies to them and think what harm their flappy mouths could do.

Isnt it more likely that a colleagues said- I saw your Jim when he was in yesterday?
That's also an illegal breach if so.

@withiceplease

I think the fact it's DH's info and not yours is completely irrelevant and independent of him you have every reason to report it as it is your surgery with your notes. If you overheard surgery staff chatting on a bus about anyone in their practice it would be perfectly valid to report that.

Your example is much easier to deal with. The OP can make a complaint and the pratice have to act on the compliant as the complaint is about a HCP's actions.

However the OP can only authorise requested changes to her medical file and her childrens medical file.

Unless her husband has given the the pratice permission to discuss anything with the OP it's staff really should not even confirm that the OP's husband is a fellow patient.

(As her daughter is starting puberty she too will soon be entitled to independant medical privacy and the pratice would not engage with the OP without permission from DD.)

OP can make the complaint about her husbands data but she would not be entitled to know the outcome of any investigation. Plus it may result in conflict between her and her husband as she ends up the fall guy when MIL gets investigated.

It's a sackable offence and she should be. You sign when you start the job to say you won't do that so she's broken the terms of her contract.

I'd start by asking for a confidential email for practice mgr.
tell dh you're emailing to ask that your records be inaccessible without further authorisation. Ask him if he'd like to be included.

Then it's up to the practice mgr where to take it.

Your H not standing up to his mother is his problem but I would protect me and my children’s privacy by making sure the surgery were aware of your concerns. The quietly softly approach that has been adopted with regards to this woman and her intrusive behaviour, is clearly not working.

I think I would turn up in person for a verbal discussion with the practice manager OP - there's no paper trail of an email from you that can somehow make its way back to his mother then. Ask verbally for your+DP+children's records to be made inaccessible to any family members either of you may have who work in that practice - for example, your DP's mum, . State carefully that you are both very keen for your personal information to remain confidential and make sure that there is no risk of any family members accessing it, accidentally or otherwise.

That will hopefully make your point quite clearly without directly accusing your MIL.

don't want to ruin her career,

She’s done that, not you..

don't want her fired

She should be. He won’t be the only person she has done this to. Friends and other family etc.

So 2 things

No one should be looking at medical records if they not involved in the direct care of the patient. No reason to look- and if someone did it is a disciplinary issue.

However, if someone is working in a health environment and through their normal work they see someone on a list for an appointment or follow up call that they know, this is just something that happens. However, the employee should not act on this, so should not indicate to anyone that they are aware of the patients interaction with the healthcare provider. To do otherwise is unprofessional, but this is possibly what is happening? And of course this could be the conversation with the practice manager, and would lead to a conversation about professional behaviour.

Op if she has accessed your husbands noted before then she clearly has no issues with doing this again. If you are at the same practice then I can guarantee she has likely looked at your medical notes also.

Yes fair enough as pp states there is an author trail however if she has access to the system she can look at anyones notes. I was a GP receptionist and it's all connected so you just type in persons DOB or name and that's them reading away at your notes. Again they could have used another colleagues computer to check which could easily happen if two nurses are operating in the same room with maybe one computer with appointments on them. I unfortunately would ask the manager to check for you and block future access.

If it's the same system we use at work they will be able to tell who has opened the record and when. It's unacceptable, please report to the practice manager.

It's considered an act of gross misconduct for a reason @durdledoo there is a reason the NHS take this type of breach extremely seriously. I work at an acute NHS Trust, and staff have been sacked for looking at the records of friends/family/ex's and so on.

She's put herself in this position, no-one else! So if you do take this further (and you most definitely should) don't let anyone make you feel guilty for HER actions

Your thread popped into my mind last night @durdledoo Do you and your dh have online access to your medical records? I recently went onto mine and saw a tab called patient audit and when I clicked on it, it showed all the people who had accessed my medical records, including me, date and time. It's through system online, so if you or your dh haven't contacted the surgery yet, it might be a good way to have a look for proof.