Patient Access to Medical Records

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Access to Health Records under the Data Protection Act 1998

The Data Protection Act 1998 gives every living person, or an authorised representative, the right to apply for access to their health records.

A request for your medical health records held at The Meads Medical Practice Limited should be made in writing to the Practice Manager (please contact the Practice for alternative methods of obtaining access if you are unable to make a request in writing).

Under the Data Protection Act 1998 (Fees and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2000, you will be required to show some form of ID to confirm you are who you say you are.

The Practice Manager is not obliged to comply with your access request unless they have sufficient information to identify you and to locate the information held about you.

There is no charge for copies of your medical records but there may be a fee payable for repeat copies or for copies of bulky paper notes.

Once the Practice Manager has all the required information, and fee where relevant, your request should be fulfilled within 21 days (in exceptional circumstances where it is not possible to comply within this period you will be informed of the delay and given a timescale for when your request is likely to be met).

In some circumstances, the Act permits the Practice to withhold information held in your health record.

These rare cases are:

• Where it has been judged that supplying you with the information is likely to cause serious harm to the physical or mental health or condition of you, or any other person, or;
• Where providing you with access would disclose information relating to or provided by a third person who had not consented to the disclosure, this exemption does not apply where that third person is a clinician involved in your care.

When making your request for access, it would be helpful if you could provide details of the timeperiods and aspects of your health record you require (this is optional, but it may help save Practice time and resources and reduce the cost of your access request). If you are using an authorised representative, you need to be aware that in doing so they may gain access to all health records concerning you, which may not all be relevant. If this is a concern, you should inform your representative of what information you wish them to specifically request when they are applying for access.

If you have any complaints about any aspect of your application to obtain access to your health records, you should first discuss this with the clinician concerned. If this proves unsuccessful, you can make a complaint through the NHS Complaints Procedure by contacting the Practice formally.

Further information about the NHS Complaints Procedure is available on the NHS website