If so (and we won't discuss here the fact that as resident abroad you should have de-registered) - please look at what is about to happen with your medical records. GPs are urged to sell your records on the was to privatisation.
People are right to do more research, but the fact that so many dismiss it out of hand immediately as “this must be wrong” is a huge part of the problem. Bad things happen when good people do nothing etc.
Opting out of sharing your confidential patient information - NHS Digital
Surely you remember which GP you were registered with, or at least the location so you can search for local practices, that should trigger your memory.
We told our GP we were leaving and essentially de-registered all 4 of us ..
However .. Every time we go back we seem to have one of the kids unwell and require some treatment, antibiotic etc.. It's impossible to persuade them to accept that we should pay. Totally not interested, either in the GP office, the NHS hospital or even in a private clinic.. They all just say noooo we'll get it back from the NHS, don't pay, it's too much trouble etc etc.
Even our private dentist, they just won't take money for the kids, it's obviously just so much easier to claim it back from the NHS..
It's the state of the NHS i guess .. Even when our youngest kid was 2 yers old, we suspected that she ate some medication.. Potentiall poisoning.. We took her to hospital and they decided to keep her for 24 hours.. There was a private hospital next door to which we were subscribed.. But when i suggested we move there to free up space, nope just stay here, too complicated.
It had never occurred to me to de-register with my GP, but thanks for sharing, I will make a note to do that.
On the bright side, it appears that this isn't UK-wide, rather (as per usual) just the English, not the Scottish patients
This is hilarious - my Scottish partner has tried to pay for medical care when he had emergency kidney problems in England, and was stunned at their blasè attitude to payment.
And I'll never forget my first visit to a chemist with a prescription (keeping in mind I'm Aussie so I was unfamiliar with the UK system) and she just handed me the medication and walked away. I was left with my wallet out, saying 'hello? I have to pay for this?' And that lovely Scottish lilt: "not here, you don't."
There used to be reciprocal agreements and/or exemptions for some non-residents. That has changed a bit with Brexit but there are some situations where NHS care is free for non-residents. I suspect many places simply don't want to do the paperwork.
I deregistered and paid for our medical records to be sent to us when we first moved here.
In the UK, your medical records are owned by the department of health. Your GP doesn't own them, so GP's won't be encouraged to sell them to third parties. The plan is to digitise all medical records and so they can be easily shared within the NHS. Apparently, it will also be made available for a fee, in an anonymised form (ahem!) to third parties, and it can be deanonymised e.g. by the police.
NHS Digital does not sell data. It does however charge those who want to access its data for the costs of making the data available to them. This is because we are not funded centrally to do this. Charges only cover the cost of running the service and means that those organisations who need access to the data bear the costs of this, rather than NHS Digital. We do not make profits from the service.
The data will only be used for health and care planning and research purposes by organisations who have a legal basis and legitimate need to use the data. We publish the details of the data we share on our data release register so we can be held to account.
We do not allow data to be used solely for commercial purposes. "solely". That's alright then...
Nope. It was over thirty years ago, I never went to the doctor back then and I’d moved several times in a few years due to uni and sandwich year etc. I’m fairly sure I didn’t change GP every time and I have absolutely no clue where I was last registered.
To be honest I don’t really care, I don’t think my meagre medical records will be of any interest to anyone.
I've just spent a few minutes on google using the search terms 'UK, obligation to de-register, NHS' and can find no reference to any legal requirement to do so. Plenty on how to register, and what to do if you want to de-register at one practice and re-register at another.... but no legal requirement to do so if you are leaving the country.
I know exactly who my GP was, and stayed in touch with him until his unfortunate death a few years ago.
When we left over forty years ago I remember asking him if we needed to anything and he replied "no, nothing". Every few years practices apparently went through their records and sent the files of patients they hadn't seen for several years to the NHS central storage unit, marking them as 'in-active' (expect this is no longer a physical option as everything is now computerised).
If JackieH knows better perhaps she could provide a working link?
I for one am not going to believe a word that comes out of Matt Hancock's mouth, nor risk clicking on a link from a site as dubious sounding as 'open democracy'.
There should be such an obligation given that the gp charges the tax payer for you being on the books, but the uk being the uk and not ch I agree there isn't.
Thanks to Jackie for alerting everyone to this. Personally I don't care as I've only been to the gp once, and my condition is hardly secret - but other people will mind.
Back in 2001 I did IT work for a company in the uk that did data analysis on medical records.
It was a private company owned by 4 doctors (consultants) and employed 30 data input girls (yes they were all female) and 1 chap who looked after the database.
All personal details were removed from the records and they used them for research and sold the data sets around the world for a good profit.
The NHS gave them the data for free at the time.
They would for example set up query such as ;
How many men aged above 65, who smoked all their life and had a heart attack lived until 70....and lived until 70 given this drug as treatment ...
Travelling at the moment, so will check when we return home, and receive the last BMJ with hopefully more detail.
BM, perhaps you don't care about your records- but it is about the basic principle surely, not individual records. Including mental health, sexual health and insurance risks, etc.
Yours, mine, anyone medical records should never be shared without your explicit permission and never ever sold on, no?