My GP now offers the full range of online services, from appointments and prescriptions through to full access to my medical history. I can choose what services I want to take up. Anyone using this already? What’s your experience been on having access to a full med history – good, bad, worrying, confusing?

I use this for booking appointments and find it quite good

What’s your experience been on having access to a full med history – good, bad, worrying, confusing?

Enlightening and should have done it years ago.

Edit: I don’t understand why they’re not shared between patient and doctor. ‘Work in partnership with patients’ says the GMC Good Medical Practice but the reality for some can be quite different.

Only used it for booking appointments. It’s fine unless I want to see someone in the next 3 weeks….

I only have access to appointments and repeats. The repeat bit means I don’t have to keep clogging up their reception so is a win all round. Haven’t used the appointment but took a look and very few were available!

I would welcome access to my history – not sure if it means greater security risks?

I would welcome access to my history – not sure if it means greater security risks?

Pay £50 for a paper copy, you’re legally entitled.

Great for booking appointments. Keep checking the available slots, they seem to allocate availability for same/next day appts. each morning.

Enlightening and should have done it years ago.

Ah, that’s interesting and what I’m interested in. I’m naturally inclined to stick my head in the sand on anything health related – being informed and thus enlightened seems to me a good thing.

Our GP has the EMIS Patient Online System.

GP Appointment booking works well, it’s brilliant for repeat prescriptions.

If only I could arrange blood test and practice nurse appointments, it would be perfect then.

As above been using the EMIS system for years. Only had access to Appointments and Repeat Prescriptions but it’s been all good…

Pay £50 for a paper copy, you’re legally entitled.

Or wait a bit and get it online for free – pretty sure the NHS is committed to granting access by the end of March.

(And if you want it before then and you’re prepared to just accept the electronic record, it’s only a tenner – the fifty quid is for the paper record, but certainly all the most recent stuff (and all of the important stuff pre-electronic record) will have been scanned or summarised in).

I deal with the data about the rollout of those services for the GP practices in Leeds. Have used the version in the EMIS and TPP SystmOne test environments, but never accessed my own record in a live system yet.

cb – there shouldn’t be any security impact, you’ve given a login and password and have to have your account activated in the GP system before you can view it. Some practices well only give access to a Summary view, some will give a Full view option (difference in system functionality, but the aim is 95% of practices offering full record by the start of the next financial year)

It’ll be reviewed, so even the full report may not be completely full.

It’ll be reviewed, so even the full report may not be completely full.

I doubt they’ll be reviewed, the volume would be too massive to go through and individually review/redact patient records. I know it was one of our GPs concerns, and I think that’s led to a tweak in provision. My understanding is that you won’t get to see free text notes, doctors opinions etc, but you’ll see any condition and medication information that would be recorded as Read Codes within the GP systems. That could be out-of-date info though, things get changed fairly swiftly at times…

… the volume would be too massive to go through and individually review/redact patient records…

May be able to help with that. 😉

My understanding is that you won’t get to see free text notes, doctors opinions etc, but you’ll see any condition and medication information that would be recorded as Read Codes within the GP systems. That could be out-of-date info though, things get changed fairly swiftly at times..

Can imagine it is pretty fluid, to be fair! Think there are some Read Codes that would need to be removed still.

Our GP’s surgery is still in the Dark Ages. Leeches anyone??

My understanding is that you won’t get to see free text notes, doctors opinions etc, but you’ll see any condition and medication information that would be recorded as Read Codes within the GP systems. That could be out-of-date info though, things get changed fairly swiftly at times.

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Can imagine it is pretty fluid, to be fair! Think there are some Read Codes that would need to be removed still[/quote]

The notes for my GPs service state full access covers “medical problems, consultations, allergies, medication, lab results, documents, immunisations.” I look forward to seeing what that covers (I think). This is South Cumbria bttw.

If it turns out you were adopted as a baby or had an entry saying you’d been beaten by your partner, that would probably be redacted.

Depends on how/where in the system those are coded. If you’d told your doctor you’d been abused, that wouldn’t need to be redacted. Adoption isn’t necessarily something that would be coded at all, unless you knew it and it was relevant to your record.

I know from one of the systems that things coded in Journal entries are treated differently to things coded in Referrals or Medication tables, for example. It may be that the Journal codes aren’t published, but other tables are. I know I’ve had arguments with GPs over where they coded things when it came to measuring their electronic referrals and Choose & Book performance, seemingly missing coded that were actually in a different table etc…

This is sort of where it gets into muddier waters – if you told your GP you’d been beaten, your violence spouse says “did you tell your GP?” then coerces you into requesting a copy of your medical records to check, there’s a school of thought that suggests it might be better for that data to be redacted. Agree with the adoption thing – probably it won’t be there, but I’m sure there may be circumstances where it is, and in that case it would need to be redacted.

I find it worrying that patients can now access their lab test results at will. I work in a path lab and we’ve always been told we can’t discuss results with patients, they have to do it through their gp, we’re not medically trained to give advice although technically we know what we’re talking about. Now patients can see their results, some of which will be flagged as abnormal or just give a figure without explanation which the patient then googles and self diagnoses terminal illness! Or they see they’ve got MRSA and assume the worst. Booking appt’s online etc is a good idea, but lab results? nope.

Now patients can see their results, some of which will be flagged as abnormal or just give a figure without explanation which the patient then googles and self diagnoses terminal illness! Or they see they’ve got MRSA and assume the worst. Booking appt’s online etc is a good idea, but lab results? nope.

Polite request to give patients some credit for wanting to be involved in their health care by increasing their knowledge. They’re not all stupid!

I don’t think anyone’s saying don’t be interested in your healthcare – rather, the detail, implications and nuances of lab results take years of training and experience to be able to process in any meaningful way, Patient Online’s outcome may be that patients make wildly inaccurate conclusions from data they don’t fully understand. After all, GPs are already feeling the effects of the online (mis)diagnosis issue, PoL is only ever going to exacerbate it.

Logged on last night and noticed some extra fields for Medical History. Only seems to have my repeat prescriptions and last issued date.

Not too fussed to be honest, I can’t imagine how seeing my notes at home will help me beyond what I discuss at the GP. I can see it could cause panic amongst the fans of Dr Google. I had a high potassium on a recent bloodtest. Nurse called me back for a repeat and said at the time it was likely a damaged or gone off sample but they like to double check the result just in case. If I’d just looked up High Potassium after seeing it on my notes, I’d probably be worrying unnecessarily.

I would suggest that perhaps only those who’ve been misdiagnosed consider this a good thing.

This is probably going to sound far ruder than it’s intended, but do you think having access to your medical records would help in the case of a misdiagnosis?

I use it for appointments and repeat prescriptions.

Had online booking for some years no. As above, it’s okay if you want to book a month in advance. If you’re lucky you’ll get a locum at the weekend as an earlier appointment but they’ll be next to useless unless it’s something basic.

It did let me do repeat prescriptions which was handy when I needed it.

Only records it has are very simple stuff about vaccinations I’ve had over the years.

Wish I could get test results on it. Full patient records would be interesting, but I have a suspicion a lot of mine are missing. Whenever I’ve been via A&E and supposedly stuff is sent to the GP, next time I see the GP they seem to have no clue about it. It’s all still sent in the post (or in the case of one hospital to another they just gave me the stuff to take to another).

We would have had everything online and easily accessible by different parts of the NHS if it wasn’t for protests about a centralised database. That and failed IT projects.

It’s ever-so-slowly moving that way – the above-mentioned TPP has, I believe, good integration between primary and secondary care for those units using their systems. Just need to push the other suppliers and get them to integrate, GP2GP is a step in that direction for primary care, I think.

This is probably going to sound far ruder than it’s intended, but do you think having access to your medical records would help in the case of a misdiagnosis?

I honestly believe that if I’d had access to my medical records years ago my health would be considerably better than it is now.

I think cg is probably right in that GPs are just going to have to get used to the idea that patients have a lot more info and have to work with it. It doesn’t fit with the idea that the doctor is always right but it also doesn’t fit with the time they have available :(. I suspect that both sides need to learn to work with it.

I honestly believe that if I’d had access to my medical records years ago my health would be considerably better than it is now.

Fair one, that doesn’t sound as though you’ve had a particularly pleasant experience. The horse may have bolted, but that particular stable door will be closed soon.

I think cg is probably right in that GPs are just going to have to get used to the idea that patients have a lot more info and have to work with it. It doesn’t fit with the idea that the doctor is always right but it also doesn’t fit with the time they have available :(. I suspect that both sides need to learn to work with it.

Speaking very broadly, I don’t think that GPs are particularly against it – there will be some, of course, but annecdotally the ones I’ve spoken to are only concerned about the time it will add to an already very heavy workload. The idea behind it is to encourage people to take more interest and care in their own wellbeing, which will only benefit them and the NHS.