Medical staff/receptionists access your medical records?

[Megan91]

Hi, need some advice if anyone can make this clear for me. I live in scotland and i have a relative who works in the office at the hospital for the nhs (national health service) she mainly types letters sends out results to patients etc however im wondering if she would have access to medical records specifically mine? I have recently just had some appointments at the hospital that I wouldn't want anyone knowing about as its very sensitive for me but I'm worried she accesses my records and sees differently from what I have said. I know it would be a massive breach for her to do this but just wondering if she can see anything or not?

Thanks

It would be a sackable offence if she accessed your records.

She could access your records, in the sense that she likely has the means to do so via Smartcard etc. If she works for the department that is dealing with your case, then it's possible that she might legitimately come across the information during the course of her work. If she was to randomly access your records without a legitimate reason then that would be a disciplinary matter, should it be discovered.

@SileneOliveira @Kedgeree thanks for the replies, she doesn't work in the dept I was in but i wasn't sure if she would still be able to access full medical records. If she was to see booked appointments would it just tell her for what dept or would it specifically say what my appointments were for? Im just worried incase she does check and it wouldn't be caught out.

I don't know what the system would actually show her, sorry. Why do you think she would look?

I work in NHS Scotland.

It depends. If she works in the same health board then she would have the ability to access. If she’s works in a different health board then she probably wouldn’t.

There’s a strict audit system of who accessed what. So if I accessed my kids notes (which I am able to) it would get flagged up. It’s a big deal to access notes for unprofessional reasons.

Yes she probably could view them if she wished. On your file is probably a referral letter from GP saying what the problem is as well as the appointment letter sent to you.

If she did this it would have massive implications for her. You're not even allowed to look at your own records!

Do you have reason to believe she'd randomly start searching through the records of various people she knew? That would be odd behaviour.

@Megan91 - it probably varies by Trust, but the Trust I work for still uses paper medical records. To access the details of your appointments and medical history she would need to request your medical records (which administration staff routinely do to ensure all the records are in the department for the clinic appointment). Then she would need to physically look through the medical records. On the electronic appointments system, all she would be able to see would be which department and which consultant/clinic. However, knowing which consultant you are seeing would give a reasonably strong indication as to why you were there as consultants are quite specialised in what they deal with. That said, as previous posters have said - accessing your records without having a need to (such as requesting your notes for a clinic appointment or booking you an appointment on the system) is a sackable offence. Every single access (date, time, person etc) to your electronic records is recorded and can be audited if necessary. It is even a sackable offence to access your OWN medical records as you have no reason to do so as part of your job. I know this probably isn't as reassuring as you are hoping for. Would it reassure you to bring up in conversation with this person the possibility of accessing friends/family medical records as a hypothetical question and seeing what their response is? If anyone asked me, they'd be left in no doubt that there's absolutely no way I'd be allowed to do that! And if she did say that she can/does access records without good reason then you should let the hospital know (they should have a PALS (patient advice and liason service) team that you can contact in the first instance).

@PaddyF0dder thanks Paddy was hoping someone who worker for nhs would maybe see this and give me some clarification. She doesn't work in the same dept I was in but I just wouldn't want any relative of friend looking into my medical notes or appointments and was worried this can happen.

If she's in a different department she would be unlikely to accidentally come across your notes. She could, if she wanted to be fired, probably search for them and look if she was desperate but unless there's a massive backstory I don't know why she would!

The answer to your question is yes, it can happen.

It depends on how they organise access and if they use paper records. Electronic records can have access limited to specific areas/roles and will have an audit trail of who accessed them. Paper records are usually stored in a location with access limited to specific staff, she may have access to this area with her role and there is no record of who went in each paper record.

I've worked in admin in the NHS in England, I would imagine that the law/procedure is similar.
I had access to all records of patients in the NHS trust I worked in. It was all electronic. However, it was audited and randomly checks were supposed to be made to make sure the the patients records I accessed were being treated by the department I worked in. Any service user could request that the hospital checked and audited who had been in their records (and the trust would do it and check that it was a justified access).
There are also layers of access. Admin staff were I worked could not see medical notes, clinical staff could. I could only see appointments and contact details. This may vary by trust, and of course, some are paper based and some are in the transition stage so have both paper and e-records.

When I say that the hospital would check at service users request- they would not give them a list! They would just say that they have checked as requested. I would imagine that anybody without a justified access would be investigated, but I don't know what they would tell the service user in that case.

Just wondering if I arranged to see a consultant privately who also worked for the NHS and they accessed my NHS records would that be in breach of their NHS role?

This is interesting. My twin recently started working at the local doctors. We don't get on, when she worked at the local cottage hospital, she used to gossip about patients and tell us about local folk we knew who were in for whatever reason.
I can't prove that obviously, so when she started working at the only gp practice in town, I emailed the practice manager basically looking for reassurance.
No answer at all. nhs scotland too, so i just have to hope she values her job! I have depression, something which she judges me for, I suspect she has checked my record to see what medication I'm on.
I know she calls my Dad when he has appointments to remind him. But he doesn;t mind.