Medical Records...

[Castiel]

Ministries departments in Trusts would be overwhelmed and I know it can take months sometimes to get a persons records together.

Exactly.

So basically when I put information on the NHS Occupational Health form because it is asked in a certain way and I don't want to tell fibs, that is the only information they require from a GP?
So in my case the GP letter would read:
1) Knee operations in 1985 but never came back complaining
2) Depression in 1988 but no problems since then
3) Asthma but hasn't ordered his inhalers for 5 years

I always wanted to know what employers ask for and what they get (with permission).

I'm not sure it would be worded quite like that, and there would be some relevant detail included if needed, but in essence that is what an employer would receive.

We have a very specific declaration that each employee has to complete every 6 months when we do the Licence check. All we are concerned with are the specific criteria that current legislation requires of all Class D licence holders and we would require written confirmation of the fitness of the employee from both their GP and the DVLA before they would be allowed to drive or indeed return to work.

We would neither require nor have any legal recourse to demand to see the entire medical records of any employee. I would assume that is true of all industries with the obvious exception of some state security/police/military organisations which may require under legislation a full disclosure.

For us, in your case, all we would require is confirmation from your GP that you are fit to work under the criteria that we would inform him of and that you have informed the DVLA (we would confirm your eligibility for a D class licence and that you had indeed done so) of the instance of Depression and that your licence was still valid.

That is it really.


In the case of other long term conditions that may effect your employment or reliability, such as long term sickness etc, then we would require an independent medical to be undertaken (paid for by us) and would act upon that in regard to continued employment.

 

[bitslice]

I always wanted to know what employers ask for and what they get (with permission).

I believe you can ask to see what the Doctor has written before it gets sent off.
I think you can also ask at that point for certain information to be omitted.

I'm not sure exactly how you go about requesting that you want to see it first

 

[SexyGreyFox]

I would assume that is true of all industries with the obvious exception of some state security/police/military organisations which may require under legislation a full disclosure.

I would still think that would be a massive task for Ministries to undertake.
Perhaps Dr MehulLakhani can offer more guidance on this.

I think you can also ask at that point for certain information to be omitted.

What would be the point of an employee asking then?

 

[Castiel]

I would still think that would be a massive task for Ministries to undertake.
Perhaps Dr MehulLakhani can offer more guidance on this.

There may be some form of apparatus already in place that allows this information to be shared somehow between specific ministries. However with regard to the MoD, records are requested from your GP and also MoD medicals are also pretty common.

Maybe the good Dr can shed some light on this.

 

[Energize]

There is also a really tragic side to this.

People with alcoholism sometimes don't go to the Doctors because it will go on their medical records and may be seen by an employer.

End result, they die from drinking because they wouldn't seek help

Don't try and pick holes in that, it's a fact.
Also any life insurance becomes null, so if you are the partner of a drinker then you are on your own financially when they die.

To what extent people with depression avoid seeking help I don't know, but I bet some people don't want such a thing being seen by employers.


The whole thing stinks, you can't now discriminate on sex with regards to car insurance, so medical illness like depression shouldn't come into life insurance. For one thing it's personal, I wouldn't want some pencil pusher having access to all my details, or for some gobby cow in HR to know my history.

I myself have withheld information from the doctor for exactly this reason.

 

[Rameses]

I worked in a medical records office, and as far as I can recall you can only make a note for explanation/amendment to be included in your records.

 

[bitslice]

What would be the point of an employee (r?) asking then?

Well yeh, it does seem odd to me too. I am only going from something I half read here.

Perhaps it's to avoid the specifics being passed on, but clearly if some asks about a condition and you then withhold that information, it doesn't look good.


btw. For people avoiding doctors for this kind of reason, my father used to use a private doctor to diagnose his heart condition and he bought the required pills privately. Otherwise the company he was working for would have stopped him from going abroad if it had gone onto his NHS medical record.

It's a pretty screwed up NHS if we can't get treatment for depression, without then being scared about getting a job in the future.

 

[Raumarik]

For people avoiding doctors for this kind of reason, my father used to use a private doctor to diagnose his heart condition and he bought the required pills privately. Otherwise the company he was working for would have stopped him from going abroad if it had gone onto his NHS medical record.

It's a pretty screwed up NHS if we can't get treatment for depression, without then being scared about getting a job in the future.

What's the point of this? Your dad was probably misinformed.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Well yeh, it does seem odd to me too. I am only going from something I half read here.

Perhaps it's to avoid the specifics being passed on, but clearly if some asks about a condition and you then withhold that information, it doesn't look good.


btw. For people avoiding doctors for this kind of reason, my father used to use a private doctor to diagnose his heart condition and he bought the required pills privately. Otherwise the company he was working for would have stopped him from going abroad if it had gone onto his NHS medical record.

It's a pretty screwed up NHS if we can't get treatment for depression, without then being scared about getting a job in the future.

That's really stupid.

Imagine if you have an heart attack or car accident, and the doctors will need to know what kind of medication you are on in order to save your life at the ER. Not knowing the medication that you are on (as you are passed out), and you end up having a reaction to it and end up dying...who is going to suffer there?

There are reasons that those rules exists, it not unfair is it?

 

[bitslice]

Imagine if you have an heart attack or car accident, and the doctors will need to know what kind of medication you are on in order to save your life at the ER.

I'd imagine he balanced that risk against doing something that he really wanted to do, which was work abroad for most of the year.
Your example seems somewhat unlikely to me tbh

@Halfmad, nope, he knew what the rules were, he just didn't want to follow them.

 

[Modular]

depression is when you not strong enough, i had to say that - keep smiling through the smoke

 

[bitslice]

depression is when you not strong enough

and ignorance is caught from toilet seats

 

[Castiel]

and ignorance is caught from toilet seats

Thank God they are closing Public WC's then....

 

[Jolteh]

Not true there are hard copies of notes and I bet you were not able to remove passed diagnoses' from these.

Very few, if any, GPs still use hard copies of patient notes anymore. They still keep them around, but very few places update or consult them anymore and all correspondence relating to a patient is scanned and the shredded.

Well yes it can I suppose.
I have access to everybody's Medical Records in our City and surrounding areas and if I wanted I could just throw them in the bin or put them through the shredder.
However it would be against the law, gross misconduct, a very heavy fine and I could go to jail depending on how much I'd 'removed'.
If you have altered Medical Records in any way you deserve to be reported to the authorities because it's not like Facebook raping.
In short what is in the Medical Records stays in the Medical Records and you have to go through a lot of red tape to legally get it removed but I could also give you a fiver and you could shred it.
Of course somewhere up the road this could come back and bite you because daily I have Solicitors complaining about missing records, it could just be on a date between a certain time and when I can't find it we have all Clinicians (and others) involved signing a Statement Of Truth.
That one missing entry could mean a ruling against the Trust.

That's a lot of fluff with very little significance. Patient records are there for the GPs to use themselves for future reference. The rare occasions where solicitors get access to patient records are mostly for personal injury claims and these situations are pretty much regarded as in inconvenience that the GP has to be paid for.

I've grown up working in medical centres, quite often maintaining patient's records and frequently 'pruning' them of unnecessary or irrelevant information and have prepared notes to be sent to solicitors or employers. I also spent a couple of years full time as a medical file summariser in the wake of the new GP contract a few years ago when practices were moving from paper to electronic records. I've dealt with hundreds and probably thousands of records and I can tell you for a fact that they aren't the sacrosanct documents that they've been painted to be in this thread. Information is added, removed and amended to them all the time. It doesn't require any silly court orders or anything dramatic like that. Understand that the primary purpose of a patient record is for medical reference, any other use for them is a relatively insignificant second.

If the OP has a misdiagnosis on this record then all he needs to do is have a quick chat with his GP and it won't be a problem. Also, if someone's got a years old entry for a single episode of bog standard depression on their record and they're concerned its holding them back then I can't see a GP having a problem removing something so trivial.

I'm very dubious of dmpoole's claims that he has access to the records for his entire city, since I'm not aware of any city that stores their actual medical records centrally. Patient records are stored on their GP's network and summary printouts of significant diagnoses are produced when requested. If there were any centrally stored records, they would simply be printouts of the electronic records or copies of the old paper records and of no value or consequence.

PS: dmpoole, thanks for your very seriousface view that my joke additions to my brother's record when we were growing up should be reported to the authorities. Fortunately for me, all of the doctors I've worked with have found the story amusing when I've told it, so I think I'll be alright.

 

[Energize]

That's really stupid.

Imagine if you have an heart attack or car accident, and the doctors will need to know what kind of medication you are on in order to save your life at the ER. Not knowing the medication that you are on (as you are passed out), and you end up having a reaction to it and end up dying...who is going to suffer there?

Luckily medical bracelets were invented a couple of centuries ago.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Information is added, removed and amended to them all the time. It doesn't require any silly court orders or anything dramatic like that.

For a patient to get something removed from their medical records it does take red tape unless you have a dodgy doctor who is willing to do it.
However they would be opening themselves up for trouble later on if that 'problem' came back.

I'm very dubious of dmpoole's claims that he has access to the records for his entire city, since I'm not aware of any city that stores their actual medical records centrally. Patient records are stored on their GP's network and summary printouts of significant diagnoses are produced when requested. If there were any centrally stored records, they would simply be printouts of the electronic records or copies of the old paper records and of no value or consequence.

Believe it.
I have access to Medisec, Patient Documents and Patients Letters (both are which are in IPM) which are all GP related.
If you are asking can I see what they see on their screens when a patient walks in? - no but I get the synopsis.

 

[Jolteh]

For a patient to get something removed from their medical records it does take red tape unless you have a dodgy doctor who is willing to do it.
However they would be opening themselves up for trouble later on if that 'problem' came back.

Yes, yes, it goes without saying that they're not going to remove any entries that might later be relevant or useful.

If a patient came asking for a single, years old entry for depression to be removed because they fear it might harm job prospects I doubt it would cause a problem. It wouldn't take "a dodgy doctor" to do it, and that's a pretty negative slant on it. GPs are self employed and their practices are their own businesses. The records they hold are for their own use. If someone else wants access to the records and the patient gives consent then they can request copies, but they have to pay for the privilege. When a patient moves between practices, a massive amount of detail is lost from a record anyway, as most medical centres use different IT systems with incompatible file types, so the records have to be re-entered manually.

A medical history is there to be used as a tool to help in a patient's care, not something akin to a second criminal record as it seems to have been described on here.

Believe it.
I have access to Medisec, Patient Documents and Patients Letters (both are which are in IPM) which are all GP related.
If you are asking can I see what they see on their screens when a patient walks in? - no but I get the synopsis.

Yea, so this is just a system with copies of some patient's record summaries it's not anything close to the actual patient records. Destroying it wouldn't make a difference.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

If a patient came asking for a single, years old entry for depression to be removed because they fear it might harm job prospects I doubt it would cause a problem. It wouldn't take "a dodgy doctor" to do it, and that's a pretty negative slant on it. .

But (and I talk from experience x100) this incident could come back and bite them in the bum.
Many a GP has been called to a Clinical Negligence hearing to try and explain 'missing' records.