Full record access, which includes your records both in the past (retrospective) and future (prospective), gives you more power to take control of your health. It'll also mean you may need fewer appointments with your GP, saving you time and effort. However, you might currently only have limited access of your GP record or have access to all the available record sections but it’s missing historic data (retrospective access).

Prospective record access update:

Following the NHS policy update in December 2022, most of us should be able to see entries to our full GP record that have been made after that date (also called prospective access). If this is the case for you, the number of available records in your app may have increased automatically. This means you’ll now have more information about your own health at your fingertips.

Even if you previously had basic access, you should be able to see your health problems as recorded by the GP; your medications; your allergies; your vaccinations; your letters; your test results; and the free-text entries that the GP has recorded for each consultation.

Your GP practice may want to screen your records before sharing them with you. A few people may not be given access if the practice is concerned that access may cause harm.

There are some practices not included in this new scheme. If you’re at one of these practices, then you may still only have been given limited access to your GP record.

Also, even if your practice is part of this scheme, you still might not have been granted access to your historic records (i.e. pre-December 2022, also called retrospective access) but you can still request this if you wish - the letter template below may help with this.

How to check your GP record access:

You can check what access your GP has enabled for you by going to the GP section in your Evergreen Life app and scrolling down to see a list of your available services and records.

If you’d like full access to your past and future records, we’ve created a letter template for you that explains formally to your GP what you want.

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Simply copy the following template into an email or document to edit:

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To [GP Practice Name],

Thank you for granting access to my records online. I only have ‘basic’ or ‘prospective’ access to my record, but I would like to have full record access to both my past and future records. I understand that you will need to screen my records.

Please enable full record access for me within 2 weeks. Your IT system supplier will help you if you're not sure how to enable it and Evergreen Life, where I store my records, are also happy to support you. You can get in touch with them at hello@evergreen-life.co.uk or call 0161 768 6063.

Yours,

[NAME]

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Alternatively, you can download a PDF version here to print off or email to your practice.