In the interest of clarity, both my wife and daughter are registered nurses in the Uk.
To access medical records is a lengthy drawn out process, mostly because everything at the moment is being slowly transferred from paper to electronic. (system 1 or EMIS)
The max charge to access paper from NHS is £50. Electronic, if yours have been fully transferred, is £10. You have to pay this to get access. It can be more if practise is GMC or private. They can charge what they want.
Who you then give it to is up to you. (Why would you?)
If however you have no interest in looking at your own records, but still give permission on a jw/hlc form for them to gain access, it is ONLY access to immediate care notes, not the whole med file. ( ie a car crash victim.) The hlc would also have to pay the above costs to have a written copy.
No health professional is allowed to distribute your med info electronically without a power of attorney in place.
The hlc would not be allowed access to all records unless they went through legal channels. They would have to have a VERY good reason to obtain all your records even with your consent, eg power of attorney.
So, its not as simple as just signing over an nhs number and they have everything about you on tap.
If there is something to this letter, it would be interesting to say in the least how it pans out.
Hope the info is useful.
