Health records · UK GDPR · Access to Health Records Act 1990
A health record is never only about one person.
Handle patient access requests and applications for deceased patients' records across the whole record — typed, scanned, handwritten and dictated — with a recorded basis for every redaction.
What the law asks
Living patients ask for their records under the UK GDPR right of access. Records of patients who have died are requested under the Access to Health Records Act 1990. Health data can be withheld where giving access would be likely to cause serious harm to the physical or mental health of the patient or another person. A controller who is not a health professional needs an appropriate health professional's opinion first (Data Protection Act 2018, Schedule 3, Part 2, paragraphs 2, 5 and 6).
Where it goes wrong
Information about family members, carers and staff runs all through the record.
Another patient's letters and results get misfiled into the record, and go out with the response.
Handwritten notes and dictation get skipped because they're hard to search.
How Smartbox handles it
Different regimes. The same four steps.
Confidentiality first — not speed, and not cost.
Discover
Bring in the whole record — typed, scanned, handwritten and dictated.
Decide
Third-party information and serious-harm decisions are recorded with their basis and the person who decided.
Act
Burned-in redactions, checked before release.
Prove
A record of what was released, what was withheld and why.
Bring a real health records request to a demo.
What you can show afterwards
- The whole record, not the typed part.
- A basis for every redaction.
Questions
Can Smartbox read handwritten notes and dictation?
Yes. Scans and handwritten notes are read by OCR, and dictation is transcribed, so the whole record is reviewed.What about requests for deceased patients' records?
Run them as Access to Health Records Act applications, with their own legal bases, separate from subject access requests.
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