Your health record includes information like any conditions or allergies you have and any medicine you’re taking.
You can access your health record and nominate someone you trust to access it too.
You can use your NHS account (through the NHS website or NHS App) or SystmOnline to access your health record.
You’ll need to ask the surgery for online access to your full health record, or you’ll only see your medicines and allergies.
Request access to your online record
First, you need to register for online services and prove who you are. To request access:
- fill out a register for online services form and choose to access your full health record
- upload or visit the surgery with photo ID so we can confirm your identity
- if you are setting up access for the first time, we will give you a username and password
- go to SystmOnline or the app for access
You will initially have access to book appointments, order medication and complete questionnaires.
Request access to your full health record online
In order to access your full medical record, your notes need to be summarised.
People may think it is a simple click of a button by the GP practice. However, there is so much more to it!
Firstly both historical paper notes and the electronic medical record must be summarised, which is a lengthy process. Only specifically trained members of staff summarise medical records. Currently we have one trained member of staff, but we are in the process of training more.
To summarise a medical record requires the review of all letters, reports, hospital correspondence etc (both historical paper and electronic) to extract relevant information to be coded and summarised appropriately. This generates a list of the patient’s past and current medical history, vaccinations, and allergies etc.
The summary is then reviewed by a GP to approve online access.
Please be aware new patients registering with the practice, obtaining the historical paper notes can take several months, which can delay the process.
Access to other medical records
For any other medical records, you need to ask for them at the NHS service you went to. This includes records like your hospital record.