NHS App: Mystery 'Allergies'

[philaustin]

Exploring the NHS app on my phone, as I should get a Covid jab record next week, and looking at the information in my health record. Not much in there, but I open 'Allergies and adverse reactions' , expecting to see 'Coeliac' or 'Gluten', possibly. Nope. Two listed: 1) Allergic disorder (Xa1pQ) - Certain Moderate Allergy, and 2) Adverse reaction to drugs/medicines/biological substances (TJ...)Drug adverse reaction -AR Certain Moderate Allergy to UNRECOGNISED DRUG.

I didn't know I had any allergies. Coeliac disease isn't an allergy. Does anyone else see these allergies in their GP health record? Strange, isn't it? Maybe its GP secret code for 'likes a glass of wine or three

[Hidden]

The Xa1pQ is a read code. If you Google it will show you what is listed under it. I used to work with community pharmacists and there is a big problem with GP practices recording things against the wrong read code. Every condition has it's own read code and it makes it easy to record/search for GPs but they and/or admin staff don't always record things against the correct read code. As an example community pharmacist told me of men recorded on system as women. Worth checking this out with your GP practice. Otherwise, maybe they have decided you have an allergy based on some of your symptoms.

[philaustin in reply to Hidden]

If I have an allergy shouldn't the GP have told me about it? Every time I'm asked about allergies I say I have none. I tried googling that code, but it returns information that would only make sense to a GP (possibly). I'm pretty sure I have no allergies, so its kind of disturbing that electronic medical records might be incorrect. Taking it to the extreme, suppose a burp in the program puts ' Do Not Resuscitate' in your records. Remember the hundreds of Post Office managers who were wrongly imprisoned because of a computer error. Computers are only as good as the people who program them, and I wouldn't trust them with anything.

[MTCee in reply to philaustin]

Concerning finding. Sounds like you should ask your gp about it next.

[philaustin in reply to MTCee]

There's the problem. Impossible to communicate directly with these people. You get to talk to a receptionist who says they'll pass a message on to a doctor and they'll get back to you. A week later you get a text giving you a time when you can join a queue to speak to someone. The person you get to speak to is the same receptionist who gives you some bull like " Nothing to worry about. The computer does those things and there's nothing we can do about it. Just the way it is. Why are you looking at your health record anyway"? Been there, done that. Not getting fooled again.

screen shot of allergies screen

[Hidden in reply to philaustin]

Again, it's a 'read code' - they may have put the incorrect code in for something else, so does not mean they have deliberately recorded you as having an allergy, they may just have put the wrong code in for something else. If you had a specific allergy, you would know about it. I think you're losing the run of yourself in panicking about this - you simply need to ask GP what it is referring to.

[MTCee]

Oh dear. All I can say is that I sadly share your lack of confidence in gp’s with regard to these kinds of problems. When I worked in a higher education college we used to have a cross on the wall in our office so you could bang your head against it when times got tough .....