The 2023/24 GP contract requires that all practices provide automatic prospective access to GP-held medical records.
You may hear this referred to as ‘prospective access to records’ or ‘accelerated access to records’
After taking advice from the Local Medical Council (LMC) and the General Practitioners’ Committee, England (GPCE), and after carrying out a data protection impact assessment we cannot safely move ahead with automatic prospective access at this time.
As Data Controllers of the GP record, and custodians of patient care, GPs have a dual obligation to uphold their responsibilities to their patients in terms of information governance as well as clinical safety.
We will continue to offer access to online services, including medical records, in the usual way, by asking patients to complete our application form, which can be printed from our website (Information and application form (PDF)) or collected from one of our surgeries.
We have taken the decision to adopt this approach to ensure access is provided safely, lawfully and with minimal risk.