Accessing Medical Records

 

Primary Care Support England (PCSE) administers access requests of medical records for individuals who are not currently registered with a GP practice in England.

From 1 August 2022, the last registered GP Practice is responsible for carrying out access to health record (AHR) requests for deceased individuals*.

*PCSE will administer requests for individuals who have passed away and whose last registered GP Practice is now closed or they were unregistered at time of death.

 

If you are registered with a GP Practice, you'll need to contact the practice to make a request - click the tile below for more information.

 

If you are not registered with a GP practice in England and are looking to access your own medical record or if you are acting on behalf of someone else (who is not already registered with a GP practice in England or on behalf of someone who is deceased but was unregistered at time of death), and wish to access their medical record, you can submit a ‘Subject Access Request’.

 

If you wish to access a medical record for someone who is deceased, you need to submit an ‘Access to Health Record’ request to their last registered GP practice. If their last registered GP Practice is now closed, please submit an ‘Access to Health Record’ directly to PCSE - click the tile below for more information.

Please note: Practices remain legally responsible for copies of records retained on local systems. Where a practice retains a copy (be it paper or electronic) of a deceased patient’s record, they are legally obliged to consider it under AHRA.

Guidance from the GMC on the release of information for deceased individuals is available via the Managing and Protecting Personal Information tile below.