Deleting NHS Records

I worked for a few months last summer in the records department of an NHS hospital.

As far as I'm aware, you can't have your medical records destroyed, because of the fact that they are ncredibly important should you be taken ill - that way, whoever's treating you can call up all of your history and past illnesses. Even if you're intending to go Private, (which is what I assume you mean by 'withdrawing' from the NHS), the records are kept at your local hospital and merely taken to wherever it is they're needed as and when.

I was actually incredibly surprised at how every single set of notes is kept watch over - if a private hospital, clinic or otherwise calls up to request them, then you have to 'tracer' them out (that is, you have to keep an electronic record of exactly where the notes are at all times) and it's an incredibly efficient system. Anyhow, I digress.
If you're interested in seeing sections of your notes (there are still a couple of sections that you aren't necessarily allowed to see without your Dr's say so - such as the psychiatric section should he/she deem it detrimental to your treatment, or something), then you can do that through the Data Protection Act. If that's what you're interested in doing, I'd suggest calling up your local hospital switchboard, and asking for the Records Department, who will most likely refer you through to someone in whichever department it is at the hospital which deals with members of the public - it might be called something different depending on the hospital, so the Records Dept. is really your first stop, as they're trained in where to send people who are interested in seeing their records.

Even if you should go private as I said above, your medical records are kept in order to help whoever it is that's treating you. Bear in mind if you fell down unconcious in the middle of a street, you would first be taken to the nearest NHS hospital to stabilise you before they could even consider moving you to a private hospital, and regardless of which hospital you were at, they'd need to know what your medical history was in order to assess what was going on.

Hope that helped

having worked ina records dept i would have thought you'd realise how silly a suggestion it is that if someone collapsed on the street and was admitted that the Drs would get hold of their notes any time soon. as far as i can see it often takes upto 5days for notes to materialise.

but i agree. 'withdrawing from nhs' you what! if you could pull this stunt then all the hypochondriacs and crazies in the country would have tried it. clean slate and all that.

I can see no good reason at all for someone to try to have their records deleted. properly bad confidentiality leaks are exceedingly rare.

Just found this on the net:
http://www.nhsconfidentiality.org/?page_id=30

Erm, no - at least, I know that at the hospital I was working at, all scheduled visits were done as part of a rota, but A&E could call up and request us to send notes up via the blue box system or to send a 'Bluey' - hospital volenteers - down to collect them and take them up to where they were needed, which would be done within a few hours or less. (Having said that, the 'Bluey's didn't do much; they wouldn't go outside of the main hospital because most of them were 60+ and the records department had it's own outside building, which was a bit stupid!). But anyway, how can you say it takes 5 days in order to send records from one side of the hospital to the other? You honestly think they could treat someone for 5 days without any knowledge of their pre-existing medical conditions?

Having said that, you may be referring to GP notes, which is slightly different - the notes your GP holds are fewer, and kept at your Dr's surgery, and can take a while to be requested through (though everything important is copied onto your hospital notes and most sheets etc can be faxed through if they're really that important.) So even that would almost certainly be done in the day.

If it's any help, OP, what Jamie said is true in the confidentiality leaks rarely happen; it's a particularly stringent process. For example, even if when I had to fax some doctor's letters over to a clinic, i had to cover the patient's name and ring through afterwards, and only when I confirmed that the correct person was in posession of them was I allowed to check that it was for the right patient name (until that point it's all done by hospital number, so it's not even like if anyone intercepted it they could know that it was yours.)

you want to withdraw from the NHS? one gets the inkling that this is not the best idea in the world..

your records are an essential documentation that will be needed throughout your life should you be taken ill, ie look up previous medical histroy n etc
GD