27 years on IB

Thanks pussycatsmum i,m trying my best to , but at the moment my heads all over the place.

Take care and keep your pecker up too.

Chrissy V

Have just discovered that when some people that have long term problems & have not been seen regularly by GP/Consultants etc or have moved about but have just had their prescriptions etc, all their information is removed from central records after 2 years. Hence why no records existing for many patients and information 'lost' pertainig to one. With this in place how is any one able to sort out their paperwork to give to the ESA/ATOS/DWP from over a period of time elapsing. Your GP is under no obligation to hold records on you longer than a 2 year period of time, they are actively sending old records to the central records, presumably believing they are held there. In fact they are destroyed after a short period of time. Very useful for many of us I see.
Central records just told me that it is up to the patient to ask for all copies of consultants letters etc that is provided to their GP to be cc'd to them to keep themselves. Great in hindsight,but useful for us all to know from now on.

I was lead to believe medical records should be kept till 10 years after a persons death, but don,t quote me on it i was told this by someone who works as a HCP for ATOS. They know nothing about me being on this site and they never will do.

ChriissyV

medical records did used to be kept, but this changed when micro fish was introduced, however because of the sheer backlog of records it was deemed correct to remove files thought to be no longer viable to be kept. No legal presedence was set, however because of volume of files and ltd space 'removal/loss' of files began. From 2000 it was concluded that files not asked for by GP's in the previous 5 years could be destroyed.

Thanks for the info, i just hope my own records may help my case.

Chrissy V

The information on medical records is wrong.all med records are kept until death, and up to 3 years after. when u change GP's your electronic records should be through within 6 days, the paper one's can take up to 6 weeks, records are stored at the community health index office so if new gp wants access to your previous med notes in an emergency, he can ring them. Other records are kept at the practitioner service stores, this can happen for a number of reasons. I had access to my records last year, I have changed gp's three times in the last 2 years, all my records were there, right back to childhood. hope this is of some help