Medical records; a query?

[KatyMac]

I saw my (old) GP about something in 2005

Will my new doctor have access to this? Will it have been "weeded" and removed? Or shortened in any way?

Can I check?

Reason being in 2005 I was diagnosed with "Viral arthritis" & that it would go in a few months and last week I was diagnosed with "Viral arthritis" & I want to GP to check to see that during the last 6 years I have consistently complained about the same symptoms in order to get a referral to a specialist

It will still be in your records, it is illegal to destroy or "weed out" anything in them. What does happen however is they are converted from paper to computer records, and whoever did this may have thought your past viral arthritis was not serious enough or relevant enough to include in you new summary. This normally happens with things such as isolated bouts of say cystitis, tonsillitis etc but it varies enormously from surgery to surgery. Or it could be in a file on your computer record that is dormant. But it will definitely be recorded somewhere, it just might take a little bit of looking for, which I'm sure your GP will do if you express your concerns. You are able to access your own records if you wish by contacting your surgery and making an appointment to view them, there may be a fee involved with this. Hope that helps and you get sorted.

Thanks

I phoned & asked them to have the paper records available - just in case

I summarise medical notes and I probably would have included viral arthritis in the computer summary. Either way, there will be a paper record of it if it's not on the computer.

Oh good

I think it's unlikely that I have had viral arthritis for 6 years