How to access medical records? *Non Urgent*

[winterjadedsoul]

Hi,

I apologise if this is in the wrong place, wasn't really sure where to put it. Please move/delete as appropriate.

Basically, I've just got out of hospital for random shakiness that was suspected to be serotonin syndrome (or something that sounds like that). It wasn't that, but some other issues came up. For the majority of the stay I was completely zombie-fied on diazepam and lorazepam, and have very little memory of what went on. Is there any way I can get hold of my notes at all? I have no idea what any of the doctors were called, or any useful information at all! Also, if I can get hold of them, would I have to go back to the hospital to see them, or can they be emailed?

Thanks so much!

[Animad]

Firstly, usually the doctors send a letter back to your GP which gives information about what occurred in hospital/ an appointment, though sometimes these can be quite brief. If they do then the majority of people get a copy of this through the post. If you were discharged in only the last few weeks it may be worth waiting to see if anything comes through the post.

It may be worthwhile ringing your doctors to see but I know with my own doctors if you want to see a copy of your medical records then you have to send a letter to the practice/ surgery manager stating why you want to see them. It may be if you contact the hospital they will let you have a copy of all of what they've written as by law you're allowed to see it so it may be worth contacting them. Really I think it's very unlikely that they'll email it to you, especially hospital notes which are sometimes just written out on paper, they're more likely to either send you copies or if you have access to one, fax you them. Everywhere is different and has their own policy though and it may be that due to confidential reasons they may want you to look at them there (as if they get sent out there's always the chance that someone else may accidentally recieve them and read through them) and may ask for ID or similar to check you're who you say you are. It may also be that if you get them you struggle to understand them as often they contain a lot of medical jargon/ acronyms which most people don't understand. This isn't there to confuse you, just to clarify things more for the doctors/ other staff members and also to save time so it may be you find them hard to understand (or find them totally impossible to decipher at times) and if this is the case, even if you get copies of them sent to you it may be worth getting someone with a medical background to look over them with you just to allow you to understand it all more if it is a bit complex in the way that it's written. I, for instance, type very differently on here to what I do on the records that I write; if I typed here how I did on there then members would really struggle to understand a lot of what I mean because it does take quite a bit of understanding to know what some of the phrases/ acronyms etc mean and it may be more complicated things than that are added (such as possible reasons for you having problems which you may want clarifying further. I'm not saying you will definately need to go to the hospital/ doctors or have someone help you with it, I'm just saying that that may need to be the case.

[winterjadedsoul]

Thanks so much for replying. I will wait and see if they send me anything, then I will try to get in touch. Thanks a lot :)