how do i go about obtaining my United Kingdom ancestors Medical records?

Question

no silly answers please and only british websites to be posted thanks!

Answer 1

Short answer to your question - no, you cannot do this online. You will either need to go to a record office in person or pay a professional to do it for you. A lot of this question also depends WHEN you are looking for records. If it is pre-1900, it is usually doable if a bit hit-and-miss (records have been known to get destroyed in the intervening years in floods or fires or in German bombing raids during the war, and in many cases were simply routinely destroyed as being no longer required). It is only comparitively recently that things are being kept no matter what.

Medical Records are personal, and where kept, are closed to public access for 100 years. Many people have enough trouble trying to get their own records, without trying to get copies of their forebears. If you have a legitimate reason for wanting to see an ancestors records (inheritable diseases or gene defects for example) then this would be much easier to do than citing "genealogy" as your reason for wanting access, as they will do their best to get rid of you, probably quote the "Data Protection Act" at you, and hope that you will go away.

General medical records themselves are unlikely to survive. Your best hope is with old admission registers from hospitals, asylums and workhouses, which if released to public access will be at the nearest local County Record Office to the hospital in question. Some hospital NHS trusts keep their own records on site, in which case you'd need to speak to the archivist. If they let you in to the hospital to look at anything younger than 100 years, there will usually be very strict conditions as to what you can look at. Frankly, it's not worth the hassle, but then you'll find that out for yourself soon enough!

Answer 2

The NHS don't keep medical records for longer than 25 years and they have to be active. I spent some time a few years ago deleting medical records from the computer system because they were old and inactive. Imagine if the NHS kept every single record of every single patient that had been seen in the last century.

Depends how long ago these records were active. You could try the local NHS ..they put on the right track but i would'nt hold out much hope. You might try the newspapers of the area for obituaries...Libraries.....Do you have a date of death? have you been to the grave if there is one?? If you have ask at the Cemetery office because there may have records of the place of death. It would at least give you something to work from
Best of luck

Answer 3

the easiest way is to go to the local library where they were from. i've been try to get my families and the libraries are the best resource. you can check out public records offices but they aren't much help. so book a flight.

Answer 4

contact the nhs records in the area they lived, some records are locked, and unavailable for obvious reasons. it all depends on how far back you are looking.

Answer 5

it is unlikely that they would still exist and even after death doctors are still very hot on patient confidentiality.