AIBU to try and find out if my medical records have been wrongly accessed?

[Starrynight567]

I can't go into detail as to why I'm asking, as I may out myself, but I'm suspicious that my exH's now wife could've accessed my medical records, and I'm wondering whether I can find out if she has?
I've been separated from exH for 12 years, and he met his wife about ten years ago. In the time that they've been together his wife has caused a lot of trouble and plainly doesn't like the fact her H shares DC's with me, and has tried to ruin the relationship they have with their dad. Also, she can't abide me, even though I've done nothing to her.
So much has gone on that I can't go into, but I'm now at the point of being really concerned that she could've looked through my medical records. She's a nurse, and I know it's strictly prohibited for anyone to access medical records if they have no need to, but I believe she's brazen enough to do it.

I'm wondering how I can go about finding out, even if just to put my mind at rest, and how far back can they check to see who has actually looked at my records do you know? Thanks

I've read what a lot of people have written and most of it is assumption!

Funny that, as your previous post shows that you are WAY up there in making assumptions yourself. I expect your only response will be a childish laughing emoji once again.

If I had your suspicions, I'd be straight in there with a request to know who's accessed my records. Don't want to feel the impact or potential job loss? Don't snoop. I'd not think twice

Like I already said, you clearly only wanted ‘childish’ reply’s that agreed with your rhetoric! It’s pointless engaging with people like you on mumsnet. You’re not here asking for an opinion, you’re here to validate your views. My post was to another comment not yours so Go away now, I won’t be wasting my time engaging with you again.

Contact PALS, explain your suspicions and ask them to check. It is not a difficult thing to check who has accessed the records - it would take less than 5 minutes on our hospital system. However, she’d have to be an absolute idiot to have done it under her own log in. If she has snooped at your notes she’d be much more likely to have done it using someone else’s log in.

@Starrynight567 as someone who has worked in admin in the NHS for over 15 years, this post is bullshit

Anyone can access medical records via PAS/HIS etc, and my Trust has a very strict system that flags inappropriate access (say if I looked up my own or a family members record) which then emails the staff member and their line manager highlighting said access and asking why they needed access

You have every right to know who accesses your records and you absolutely should find out if she has - it's a sack-able offence for a reason!!

This isn't true for all NHS roles. I'm a (bog standard - no special permissions/access) midwife, and all I'd have to do is type in someone's full name to pull up their records. I might have to narrow it down from a list of people with the same name but that's not hard to do if you know roughly how old they are or part of their address. If they've ever been registered at that hospital, they'll come up.
We also use 'Connected Care' which allows us to see the patients GP record as well as any notes from the hospital.
Would I ever do it for someone whose care I'm not actively involved with? Hell no. Because if they ever DID request an audit of their notes I would risk losing my job. But I could do it, very easily.
And to those saying it's no big deal, get on with your life etc, would you really like your ex's new wife knowing about that termination/STD you had in your teens, or that embarrassing rash that never goes away, or about your mental health difficulties, that you self-harmed after your divorce, that you attended A&E following a sexual assault...? I mean, there are all KINDS of reasons that medical records are supposed to be confidential!

Are you having difficulty grasping that your post at 23:21 was a massive assumption on your part? And yet you later had the audacity to say that a lot of others are making assumptions. Pot, kettle, black.
I wouldn't want you to engage further with me, I'm all for people having opinions, but to say I'm 'jealous and out to cause trouble' for this woman is so far off the mark, and you've no idea of the shit I've put up with from her so go forth and multiply please.

It's scary how easy it appears to be for people to access confidential information!

It's so easy for people to sit behind a computer and say 'get on with your life' isn't it. I wonder if they'd say the same if they were in the same position.

It's easy, but it HAS to be easy so it can done in a timely manner. That PP who says she has to fill in a written request each time she wants to view records is a tiny minority. Our relatively small department probably processes about 250 phonecalls a day. If every single one needed a formal request filling out we'd be days behind and drowning in paperwork.

However we do have it absolutely drummed into us that we'll lose our jobs if we do look at anything we don't have cause to access. And as others have said, some systems are so strict that our manager gets a record of who's accessed what, and we would need to be able to explain every single record in certain circumstances. We have to re-do our training every 6 or 12 months so we can't claim we forgot, or regulations have changed and we didn't know about it.

If she's looked, she's a fool.

Lots of posters claiming that on electronic records can be access by anyone in the trust but not where I work. If that patient has no pathways open with your division then you can't access their health record, although you may see all their appointment dates in the trust, you won't see their health record as you have no relationship with them i.e. you work in rhematology and that patient has no pathway or even a referral to rheumatology you won't see anything. We've come across this where someone's referral has been linked to wrong dept as we should be able to see them but it blocks you and we have had to get it rectified..Bit confused how people are so confident they can access patients they aren't meant to without having accessed patients they aren't meant to 🤨

On our systems you can access any speciality. If you have system access then you can access every single patient registered on that system. I work in adult surgery and we quite often get parents calling up about their child's surgery and we only know it's a child once we put the hospital number into the system and see they are under 18. I could have a look at their child's records if I wanted to, even though they aren't our patient. I won't cos I'm not allowed to, but the system allows it.

Really? Surely when you get the first enquiry of a patient you check your appointment systems and such first rather than going straight to searching in their actual medical record to check if they are a patient of yours / have upcoming surgery with you? That sounds really inappropriate. Or perhaps you might think because you can search them overall and their dob, upcoming appts etc that you can view their whole record but without having done that, you wouldn't know surely? Most trusts I've worked at your electronic access is based on your job role, unless you were in some overall department like PALS you wouldn't need access to every patient.

@Brokenrecordroundround our outpatients and records are all on the same system. If an incorrect patient came through we can look on their referrals and see who they are meant to be contacting.

I've worked in IT in our trust before, it's very much possible to access every single patient on there as we were the ones who looked up cases like OPs!

It obviously varies across trusts/GP surgeries etc but the trust I work for covers 3 different hospitals and anyone with access can see everything if they wanted to, it's just that we're bound to rules and don't look at them. I know people who've been sacked for looking up people before so it does happen.

That's a really sensible restriction but in my experience it's not a common one. It definitely doesn't work like that in my current trust where we have a full electronic record, although what parts of it someone can access does vary by job role. My previous trust we had two different systems but on one you could access all test and imaging results and discharge summaries and on the other you could access the outpatient results. I think people were only given access to the systems relevant to their jobs but those with access could see any patient.

I'm one of the people confident I could access anyone's records - firstly I do have an overarching role where I could potentially need to interact with the records of almost any patient, often unpredictably and unrelated to appointments etc. However presumably most people have at some point done something like make a typo in the record number and brought up a different patient than they intended to - obviously you should double-check the details immediately that you go into the record and immediately go back out, put the right number in etc but you can still see that it's possible to enter the records of a patient you didn’t need (or intend) to via that kind of mistake.

What makes you think she has? Do you have any credible suspicions? She doesn’t like me and she’s the type who would do such a thing, isn’t good enough.

I'm a band 3 in my trust so lowest of the low and I can access any records in my trust including a full electronic patient record. We are bound by rules but nothing is restricted in terms of access.

What position? Thinking someone has risked their job to look up some randoms information?

Have you actual proof this has happened?

@BlondiePortz it's not the OP that needs the proof though is it? Having a suspicion is enough. If the lady hasn't accessed her records then nothing will be done and everything will be grand. If she has looked her up then she can be disciplined.

Very few people will ever have concrete evidence that someone that someone had accessed their records but they are 100% right to report and let the relevant authorities do their job.

I have no idea if this is the op or not but people can be suspicious because they are aware of something but also because of mental issues and paranoia , I am speaking generally

And i am not sure how healthy it is if people 'play along' with encouraging someome to do something where there is a chance of the latter

I've already said that I won't go into detail as I don't want to out myself potentially. Trust me, my concerns are not based on the fact she doesn't 'like me'.

@BlondiePortz if it turns out that the OP is in the middle of a psychotic episode then it would be discounted anyway by the hospital.

Usually when someone has disordered thinking it will become apparent quite quickly.

I might be some 'random' to you, as you so eloquently put it, but the person I'm talking about has given me many reasons to distrust her.

You sound very stressed OP. Try to chill out a bit and stop being so rude to the other posters

WTAF. So not only have I been accused of being jealous of this woman, I've been told to get on with my life by one or two posters, and now mental issues and paranoia are being thrown in too 😡
How bloody dare you insult me by posting this rubbish. You don't know me and you certainly have no idea about why I've made this thread. For the last time, I won't go into detail as to why I've been worried about my records possibly being looked at, and it's not just because of something said to my young dc, so is that not enough for you to understand without being nasty?
I'm out of this thread now. Thank you to people who've been helpful. To those of you having nothing better to do than be cruel then you should be ashamed of yourselves.