Mistakes and omissions on online GP records? Is it important?

[flourella]

I've just signed up to my GP's online service because I'm sick of having to walk to the practice to submit repeat prescription requests on paper. Just familiarising myself with the system and looking at my patient record and there's a couple of things I don't get.

Firstly, entries do go back to my birth, but across my entire childhood there are only 4 entries, all for polio vaccinations. No other visits, no prescribed medications or anything else mentioned, and I certainly remember some specific problems, and medicines I had to take. Is that normal? If not, is it a problem, and can anything be done?

Other childhood vaccinations are listed in a separate section but many (including all the ones due when high school age) only say the date on which they were due, not that they were ever given. So, 2nd polio booster due 1994. I know I had it, in the matron's room at school! And a tetanus booster. No mention at all of the BCG vaccine or the preceding test. Can they be called something else?

The record then jumps to my early adulthood for two or three entries. No details of referrals to other services or prescriptions that I remember being made.

There are a lot of entries over the time I've been a patient at this particular practice, but a few things I'm not sure about. Among the early entries (in 2009) there is one saying "Recall: Over 75 check (13 May 1955)". This isn't mentioned again and my correct date of birth (1980!) is given in the patient detail section. Does that mean they made a mistake and it's been corrected, so is no longer a problem? No mention of the Over 40 check they offered the other year...

Also the following across two early entries:

FH: Asthma (12D2.) (New Episode)
FH: Diabetes mellitus (1252.) (New Episode)
Acne frontalis (M2600) (New Episode)

I know I don't have the first two (nor have I ever been investigated for them), and I'm not sure what the third is but certain I don't have that either. Why would the first two have FH before them but not the third? Does that and/or the numbers following mean that I don't have the conditions? But why make a point of saying a patient doesn't have diabetes and asthma but not any other serious chronic condition that needs to be kept on top of, like epilepsy for example?

They have also shaved 3cm (more than an inch!) off my height. Must have looked at me and guessed because I've never been measured there!

Should I bother asking them about any of this?

FH is family history, does that make any sense?

These things are called "codes" and they are notoriously not very accurate so I wouldn't worry too much.

Stuff from the long past - I wouldn't bother about it, it's just what they've chosen to move from paper records to electronic records. Your full records will be somewhere on paper if you ever needed them.

Re the other recent things, FH is family history as someone said. It means you might trigger for a blood test earlier than someone without that history so you possibly answered a registration form with this on?

Anything you think is actually wrong and you want to change it, you can ask to speak to the practice manager about how you can do this.

FH is family history. The numbers are part of a coding system.

old paper notes from yonks ago have all had to be summarised on to computer systems. It’s not a perfect system (spent many hours summarising when I was a student). It’s not a massive issue if minor illnesses are missing so long as the major details are there.

The recall one is saying that in 1955 you need a recall for an over 75 check.

They code your height from letters they receive, so you've not necessarily been measured at the GP surgery but might have been measured (or guessed!) by A+E, any clinics you were referred to and anywhere else that would send a report to your GP.

FH being family history does make sense and I probably should have been able to work out what it meant. To be fair to me, I only recall my brother having an inhaler at his disposal for a brief period of time as a child, and my mother was diagnosed with diabetes shortly before the last time I spoke to her nearly 25 years ago. So I had forgotten both! But that's one thing solved, so thanks.

I might ask about the acne frontalis (whatever it is!) but it seems it's not that important(?)

Is an apparently incomplete vaccinations record ever an issue? It hasn't been so far so I might just leave it, especially if it's likely to be correct on paper. I do like things being accurate though, so it is a little annoying!

Yes, I didn't understand why someone with a birth date of 13th May 1955 would be recalled for an Over 75 check in 2009, when they were only 54. But it must be a typo for 2055, when I will turn 75. Though I'll still be 74 in May that year and I'm not sure why they'd need to list it in my records decades before it's due to happen. But, yeah. I should have thought a bit harder about these before posting, because most of them I could have guessed!

Mine only goes back to when I was 8 or 9 ( and doesn't have everything from my teens), I presume because it pre-dated electronic records.
More concerning it says I'm allergic to penicillin when I've never had it, not sure if this is because someone ticked the wrong box or I flat out refused to touch it as I child but it seems impossible to remove.

There were mistakes in mine - coding administrative errors by the clerical staff - which I had corrected. They had put an elderly gentleman’s skin cancer notification from the hospital on my record which I got removed asap. Amongst other things my life insurance declaration says I have never been diagnosed with cancer - so I didn’t want a future payout denied because of the coding error on my medical record! When I pointed all the errors out to the GP they were appalled and very understanding about why I wanted it corrected.

Well I never gave birth to dd2 according to my records!

My records, both paper and online are a shambles, full of errors and omissions.

There is nothing at all until I was 15, then there's three years worth, then nothing else until my mid twenties. Only one of my three pregnancies made it onto my record and I looked online recently and saw that I'd seen a rheumatologist twice in the last ten months. Er no, I was discharged two years ago by a different trust.

When I was diagnosed with a heart condition in 2018, the current surgery didn't put it on my record because they couldn't find a code for it. That came to light eighteen months later when they prescribed triptans for migraine, which were contra-indicated and could have killed me. I only spotted that because of a discrepancy in how the GP and the pharmacist said I should take them.

Seems like I've got lucky with relatively minor discrepancies then, if others have discovered mistakes that could affect potential future treatments or insurance payouts. I'm probably not going to bother my surgery with this now, but it should be possible to amend records when they are found to be significantly wrong.

Mine doesn't have anything before the age of 13. Then it leaps forward in to to when I was 25. Even then it doesn't have actually things I went to the GP about (like a kidney infection).

I have challenged mine some time ago as it stated I had asthma and had an inhaler for which i needed regular reviews, I've never had asthma or an inhaler and naturally did not declare asthma when taking out my life insurance so I did not want any payout affected by incorrect medical notes.

Mine says I was pregnant but never gave birth because the midwife lost my notes my thyroid specialist got cross about it and wrote letters to put in my file as it just kept stating mums second pregnancy when it was my third the nurse was arguing with him and he was arguing right back at her, excuse me? IM THE SPECIALIST HERE IVE SEEN HER FOR ALL HER PREGNANCIES IM TELLING YOU ITS HER THIRD she finally decided to patronise him and say sorry hunny he is confused I said actually he is umm right....next time in the department she wasn't there

Nice guy very precise with details phenomenal memory there is 8 years between 1&2 and 4 between 2&3 I only really saw him during pregnancy 😀

This prompted me to check and mine has no record of my pregnancy or the fact I gave birth. But it does record every text message they sent me about Covid vaccines.