Our NHS record of treatments

[Redwurzel]

Is it possible for senior staff in the NHS to access a patients records to gauge their medical history. I frame this in a positive way, say for a person who can't remember for themselves.

I have been told that our NHS records are all kept in different places say different departments and can't be brought together say for a major medical review.

I possibly naively thought by entering a person's NHS number it would be possible for someone in a NHS managerial position doing overall medical review to see a full NHS record in todays super IT age.

I have been told our records are kept so many years after we die, but effectively no one knows where thay are without been told where to look.

Can anyone update what is possible in their experiences with regards finding complete NHS records, say for oneself. Many thanks.

 

[LowMoorBoro]

Having had to deal with different departments over the last year, I spend a large part of the appointments telling them what another Doctor or Nurse has told me previously.
I assume for security, but what each department has access to appears very limited.
I asked for a single point of contact to try and help co-ordinate better but haven’t really got anywhere.
So on your question of whether is possible to have it all accumulated, in my experience it has been extremely difficult.

 

[Redwurzel]

Thank you Low Moor.

I think the words used are "need to know basis" which is OK when say the patient is on top of all their own treatments, but now when they develop mental health problems or dementia etc or just can't for any other reason.

I was in a queue for the CV19 Vacc in March and I asked where it was so long when everyone had appointments. I was told some patients could not answer some of the medical questions such as do you take warfarin? If this happened they were left in the vacc room while their GP/GP practice was rang and asked the same question. In the mean time a queue formed as it seemed to take quite a while to get the information. The Vacc centre believe it or was a GP practice poosibly the patients, but the CV19 staff had no access to any sort of any medical records. The only thing they knew was my name.