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Right to Rectification

Health and care organisations make every effort to keep your records accurate. However, occasionally information may need to be amended about you or your care.

If you think that the health or care information in your records is factually inaccurate, you have a legal right to ask for your records to be amended. For instance, you can ask for your home address to be changed because you moved house. You may also ask for something you feel has been inaccurately recorded, such as a diagnosis, to be corrected. However, it may not be possible to agree to your request.

A request should ideally be made in writing using the form below as we will need to guide  you as to how much information we require.  This will include dates of entries and what you disagree with. You may need to provide evidence of the correct details, for example proof of address or change of surname after marriage. We will then consider the request. If we agree to make a change, we will make it as soon as practically possible, usually within one month.

Sometimes, you may disagree with information written in your record, but the information could still be factually correct. For example, you may disagree with a diagnosis you were given in the past. Whilst you can still ask us to amend the entry that you feel is inaccurate, we should not change it if the healthcare professional believes it is factually correct. There are exceptions to this, for example, where there is a court order.

In cases where all parties agree that the information is inaccurate, it may still be necessary to retain the information. For example, healthcare professionals may have taken the information into consideration when making decisions about treatment or care. This information would therefore be needed to justify and explain health and treatment decisions or to audit the quality of care received. You can, however, request for a comment or entry to be made in the record to show that you disagree with the content and what you think it should say.

If you are unhappy with the decision of any healthcare organisation to retain information you wish to have deleted there are some steps, you can take. 

If you are unhappy with the outcome of that process, then you might consider making a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)  https://ico.org.uk/.

Tel: 0303 123 1113  opening hours are Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm (excluding bank holidays).

Right to Rectification
Please use format day/month/year e.g. 12/05/1979
Note: Although patients have a ‘right to rectification’ and a ‘right to erasure’, diagnoses (even incorrect ones) should remain in the record (with an indication that they are incorrect).

Privacy Policy

This form collects your name, date of birth, email, other personal information and medical details. This is to confirm you are registered with the practice, to allow the practice team to contact you and also to update your medical records held by the practice and our partners in the NHS. Please read our Privacy Policy to discover how we protect and manage your submitted data.