How much does your GP surgery charge you for a copy of your blood test results?

[Tessica]

My surgery used to charge 20p for a copy of tests results. When I asked recently for q copy recently I was told that charge has been increas d to £10. I understand that this has been done to reduce the number of phone calls which take up staff time. I thought that GPs could only make a reasonable charge. Does anyone have any information on this please?

[Maybe21]

If you sign up for Patient Access at your GP you can print off any blood results yourself .

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to Maybe21]

Sadly many many practices do not offer this service, though they are supposed to do so.

[Emskijay in reply to Maybe21]

Mine is free

[SlowDragon Administrator]

From May 2018 they will not be allowed to charge anything at all.

New ruling from EU in an attempt to increase online access for patients to their own medical records and blood test results

Meanwhile the maximum charge is indeed £10, though many practices make no charge

[Maybe21 in reply to SlowDragon]

Oh that’s a shame . My GP suggested it when I asked him for a print off of my latest results . Must be fortunate as they generally don’t charge anyway .

[Beani2]

Not sure why your paying for your blood results as my GP just prints them out for free.

[trelemorele]

I don't pay anything.

Make a fuss about it and complaint in writing.

Plenty of posts on here with links to your right to see results and reasonable charges.

Stand up for yourself.

[Hidden]

No charge at my surgery

[Hypopotamus]

One pound at mine.

[Bob00752]

Mine were free and they gave me all the results, not just the ones that they considered most important. I’ve been registered with Patient Access for over 3 years now and have access to test results - the oldest are around the year 2000! For the regular 6 monthly tests I have I can see the results by date and also a graph of each test - you can also see the changes in the “normal ranges”. Ask if you can get all your past tests for your £10 and why they can’t provide online access which would save their administration.

They also make mistakes over the phone. They mixed up two of my cholesterol results (HDL and LDL), which was when I started asking for a print off as the results didn’t make sense. I was also able to spot on Patient Access a set of blood tests that arrived 2 months after my last blood tests, seemed way different from my previous results and included a cancer test that I’d never knowlingly had. They were grateful when I queried them as there were for someone else at the practise. I hope they got the right treatment for their health problems in good time.

[ffranny]

I asked my GP, no reply, went into surgery and receptionist printed them all off for nothing..(scotland)

[Lynneypin]

No charge.

[YSpencer]

Hi Tessica l get mine for nothing. Perhaps they would email them to you for nothing.

[Lucky14]

Mine are free.

[norwood1]

20p first time I asked at my surgery and free the next time. Think your practice is being unreasonable. Might be worth asking your GP in person at your appointment as he can print it there and then for you and you are not taking up the Staff time which is a ridiculous excuse in my opinion .

[helvella Administrator]

Charging £10 is unreasonable, in my opinion.

The charge is required to be proportional and if all they had to do was click a button and pass over one sheet of A4, £10 is anything but.

(I don't see how they can charge for the phone call to ask if you can have a print. That too is unreasonable. After all, how many callers would ask and then not go ahead because the charge is too great?)

[serenfach]

Ask them to bring it up on their screen and take a photo on your phone.

[Hillwoman]

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

I posted this a few weeks ago. You cannot be charged a sum in excess of the copying and postal costs. £10 is a maximum charge.

[MajorTom]

Mine charge £2 per single sided sheet, so usually £4 to £6.

I've been using patient access for years for scripts and appointments and have asked repeatedly for access to test results to no avail.

[Greenwall]

Hi Tessica. I'm shocked by this.

I would ask them to justify the amount. A photocopy only costs about 10p (unless I'm very out of date).

Alternatively, ask to see it on screen, and then simply copy it (by hand) or take a photo if you can. If you do this very slowly, they may just give you a printout to save their time.

Or ask them to read the results over phone, but again keep asking them to repeat, ie take up their time so they give in and provide printout.

NHS is supposed to be free at point of contact.

Ask them also to prove that the eu ruling applies to you (they can't unless you entered into a contract and signed it).

If it's to put off patients phoning to ask, then put it in writing that you will expect a copy of every result, and that you are only prepared to pay 20p (if anything at all).

If we don't make a stand they will simply keep making things more difficult for us.

[MMaud]

Tessica - I agree with Hillwoman that £10 for printing records is a maximum fee (OK, there's nothing to stop them charging the max), so it could be the fee is "up to £10"?

My surgery does online access, so I self-service my results. Now at my practise, they charge 50p a sheet. Before online access, if they didn't seem keen to print them out, I used to go in, with a notebook and ask them to go through each test, so that I could write them down. They usually printed them PDQ. It was easier than managing the growing queue behind me.

I appreciate that's pretty minxy, but they're my tests and my results.

[Greenwall]

Hi

Here's another option. Try contact CQC and leaving a review of your surgery: cqc.org.uk/search/services/...

CQC like feedback from service users (or relatives) to help them give a rating.

It also means if they receive lots of negatives, they'll do more frequent checks. Now I'm sure staff at surgery won't like that.

[Hidden]

Yes, this is normal charges but not in all of the UK, unfortunately it depends upon were you are 🤔. Mine charge the same.

[Cariad-y-Mor]

Hi Tessica - I don't pay anything. GP usually just prints them off and gives them to me.

[tcanno]

Nothing, I have one done every year with no charge for a copy