The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into force next May, scraps the fees that data providers can charge people for their information.
The new rules mean practices will have to provide a free electronic copy of a patient's data, instead of charging fees of up to £50 per 'subject access request'.
What about paper records? That was what the £50 was for. It is currently £10 for electronic
I will seek clarification but the £50 charge was for the data not the paper. The £10 for electronic is lower as computerised data held will be much smaller in amount and does not have to be retrieved from central storage locations. The ruling is, that it is your information and you should not be charged for it. You should still get a paper copy but the process of a Subject Access Request will not attract a charge. The full article is in Pulse Magazine behind a paywall so I cannot do a link to it. Remember also that over 200,000 GP practices already give their patients full online access to their medical record online through Patient Access so this goes some way to reducing that inequality of access. The ruling will improve matters for those of us whose GP practices CHOOSE not to give us our own medical record unless we submit formal Subject Access Requests.
But what shows in your online record is a tiny amount of info in many cases.
Yes GP records only hold some of your health story but the legislation is saying that you can have your health data from anywhere and you must not be charged so ask away if you want it next May.
Yes, but most of my records are on paper and not available online or even to the GP on the computer system as they only computerised from about 3 years before it became compulsory - so my GP doesn't even know that I am allergic to penicillin (unless she can be bothered to trawl through the paper records - fat chance!) since that dates back to way before computerisation.
I am unable to comment as the many GP practices I have used over the last 20 years were using a computer and I have not seen hand written GP notes in that time. My online record has been summarised by GP practice staff over the last few years as information from the 1970’s has started to appear. You could take advice from Patient Online as your GP practice seems behind the times. Whatever the situation you can request your medical data whatever form it is in and you will not be charged from May 2018
They don't use handwritten notes, they just don't have the info on them and admit it. When I asked about cortisol test results from 1990s, the GP just said that the results were too old to be accessible so he couldn't see the information. I'll wait until May and ask for everything they have.
A new digital service giving patients access to records to be trialled in Bridgend
