To wish my GP practice had told me about this upward trend earlier?

[polarband]

I have used a blood pressure medication to treat migraines for several years now. As a result I need to go for blood tests and a BP check every 6 months as my BP tends to be low on this medication. The blood tests are mainly to check my kidneys but they do other checks as well, after each test I just call and they tell me everything's fine and I go again in another 6 months.

This time after my check I got called back in to speak to the doctor and was told I have high cholesterol and prediabetes. I asked him what could have caused the problem so suddenly and he said it hadn't been sudden and that if he looked at my blood test results over the past 6 years he could see that my cholesterol and blood glucose levels had been creeping up but its only now just crossed over into clinical diagnosis. I am fit, a healthy weight, a non smoking, non drinking, active woman with ideal blood pressure who eats a healthy whole food diet so when I was told my results were normal I thought that meant I was healthy not that things were getting worse.

I'm not mad that it's happened because these things do happen of course, I'm 50 now and there is type 2 diabetes in my family but I just wish they had told me earlier when this upward trend was noticed and I could have made some changes to prevent getting to this level. My GP just said they don't treat at anything below clinical diagnosis level and anything below that is in the healthy range and therefore normal.

Is it so unreasonable to think that they should flag up something like this to patients?

Right and who's got time to put in an SAR every time they get a blood test? Just because it's technically legally possible doesn't mean the average person can do it every time they need some info. Just give us the NHS app already, please, someone 🙏

Tell me you haven't read the whole thread without telling me you haven't read the whole thread 🤣

I asked for all my records, not 1 thing, the whole lot.

And then….. what happens next time you have a test or an investigation?

It is totally ludicrous that patients should have to resort to SAR to obtain something that is rightfully theirs.

Wish we had the NHS app in Wales

So do I

The reason that Scotland and Wales doesn't have the app, is that they could, but chose not to, as the devolved governments, apparently, didn't want NHS England having access to their citizens health data, and it's an NHS England developed app. Heresay, but who knows?

Doesn't surprise me in the least.

I tend to do one every 6 months or so, depending on how much I have needed medical assistance. I agree its ludicrous, but that's the system. It was just a suggestion for OP to get a more complete view of her medical history.

This is just bizarre! I assume you have raised this with the Practice Manager and the GP partners. What is their reasoning or justification for putting these obstacles in your way - sure they acknowledge that you have a legal right to your medical records?

Was this meant for OP @enrichetta ?

No… I just assumed that, before you decided to get regular SARs, you’d have tried to reason with the practice. They must have some kind of complaints procedure, surely.

Frankly, I am astonished that any general practice would be so unreasonable as to force patients to go to this length to get access to the medical records they are entitled to.

I think its required by law @enrichetta its really not any hassle. Takes 5 minutes, not something to be getting worked up over.

Thanks @TiptoeThroughTheToadstools

This is in Scotland, yes? They gave you a downloaded copy? I just assumed this was another thing we had to put up with. They told me it was not technically possible because of the way systems were set up.

Yes @Sundaybananas I'm in Scotland and have done this twice. The first time they sent me a mass of print outs, the second time I asked if they could send it digitally and they put it all on to a CD for me. It took them some time to get it done, maybe a month or 2

As you say your diet and lifestyle is very healthy then what would you have changed had you known earlier? The GP will only have been alerted to the increasing results once one of them tipped over into the alert level. They don’t have time to trawl through every patients historical results manually. This is why the electronic trigger points exist.

Download the NHS app. Not the covid one.

You can see everything on there, from letters to blood tests results to referrals.

👍🏻

FFS. 11 pages in. Do you really think nobody else will have suggested that?

Cancel the cheque as well whilst you're at it, OP.

Re the Welsh app not being rolled out. Health minister has said it's being tweaked 🙄

Slightly off topic but Chinese acupuncture resolved my migraines after having them several times a month for a year or two.
I didn’t get one for a few years.

They started happening again a few years later (I had stopped the acupuncture and it was lock down) and I have found weight lifting appears stops them.

Thank you! I really appreciate that @TiptoeThroughTheToadstools . It gives me the information I need to push harder for it.

Aren't you able to look at results online? They have explanations with them which indicate more detail. Worth looking into. Xx

@Chinsupmeloves These results aren't usually available online in Scotland, we do not have the NHS app. To get our results we are often told to submit a written subject access request and wait up to 3 months to get this information.

Apart from the NHS app it is possible to look at results online, e.g. systmone