You can now use the internet to book appointments, request repeat prescriptions for any medications you take regularly and look at your medical record online. There are different levels of access available to patients.
Medical Summary
The medical summary gives you the most important diagnoses and medications. It is usually in an easier to understand format.
Accessing the medical summary
The detailed coded record gives a lot more information but can be difficult to understand.
It is also possible to access your full medical record however for the safety of others, any information relating to other people needs to be manually removed from your record. This takes a considerable amount of time and could cause a significant delay in you gaining access to online services.
Before you apply for online access to your record, there are some other things to consider. There may be something you have forgotten about in your record that you might find upsetting. Additionally, in the unfortunate event of receiving bad news, you may see information in letters received or test results that you may find upsetting. This could happen before speaking to a health care professional where the information would have hopefully be provided in the most supportive way possible. This is particularly important if information is received outside of practice working hours. Abnormal results are usually best discussed with a health professional.
It is important to know that your medical record is designed to be used by clinical professionals to provide you the best possible care. The information is usually portrayed in a technical manner and can easily be misunderstood. This can lead to undue worry in some patients. If you do have access to your record and would like some further clarification, please contact the surgery.
If you have access to your medical record, it is your responsibility to keep your login details safe and secure. Similarly if you print out any information, it is also your responsibility to keep that secure. If you are worried about keeping printed copies safe, we recommend that you do not make copies at all.
If someone else is forcing you to give them access to your record or encouraging you to give them access, we would recommend you not apply for access at this time and contact us.
Be very careful when accessing your medical record from public computers or public internet connections. In all instances please remember to logout of the record and the computer when finished.
The information you can see online may be misleading. This is very important if you rely on it alone to complete forms such as insurance, employment or legal reports. This could lead to you inadvertently providing inaccurate information, which could have serious ramifications.
It is up to you whether or not you share the information with others – perhaps family members or carers. If it would be helpful to you, you can ask the practice to provide another set of login details to your record. This could allow another person to act on your behalf. They would be able to book appointments or order prescriptions. Please tell the practice what access you would like them to have.
We remove information from your record if it is about someone else. This can be time consuming so may cause delay in busy times. The more information you request to see, the longer this takes our team. Please only request the level of access that is needed. If you do spot something in the record that is not about you, please log out of the system immediately and contact the practice.
Welbeck Road Health Centre