Access to medical records: BMA and 21 other organisations warn about risks to domestic abuse victims

The BMA, the charity Refuge, and 20 other organisations have raised concern about the safety of opening up access to the medical records of people who have been victims of domestic abuse.The scheme to allow patients access to their prospective medical records in England was supposed to launch on 1 November 2022, but concerns about data protection and privacy for certain groups of patients led the BMA to call for a pause to give practices more time to prepare.1In April 2023 general practices across England were instructed to grant patients access to their medical records through the NHS app and other online portals, and they are contractually required to do so by 31 October.But concerns about vulnerable patients have led the organisations to come together to highlight the possibility of perpetrators using medical records for abuse.2Katie Bramall-Stainer, chair of the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee for England, said, “For the majority…
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