15 September 2022: Missing Medical Records (Presentation) - A

Counsel started the presentation by giving an overview of the key issues and topics related to missing medical records. There were quotes from various core participants who have had problems obtaining or making sense of medical records. There is a strong sense of records being tampered with, and the Inquiry has sought to obtain an explanation for missing, incomplete, and inaccurate records from various healthcare and administrative sources. There have not been any meaningful explanations why there have been such problems although there was the usual proposed excuse of the passage of time. The aim of the presentation was not to address individual cases, although some may be cited as examples, but to give a general overview.

The principle legislation in England has been the Public Records Act 1956. It lists duties to keep safe and dispose of records in a more standard, scheduled way than the haphazard local arrangements that existed before. Subsequent appendices list things like the types of records not to be destroyed (“A”), and those which could (“B”). The original medical records were to be preserved as opposed to microfilm versions. Records fit to be destroyed included blood donations, clinical notes, radiological records, consent forms, four-hourly temperature charts, etc. The Chair highlighted how some of the category descriptions were unclear.

Subsequent documents from the 1980s era expressed concern about the narrowness in describing the types of records to be retained, sought to have some records held for longer for potential legal action reasons, and clarified the situation for children and young peoples’ records. These often updates often recommended the lengthening of the respective retention periods. It was noted by the Department of Health (DH) how out-of-date the original guidance based on the earlier Act had become. This writer wonders if this is another example of a lack of leadership from the DH centrally; in the same way as it could be accused of being inactive in relation to aspects of the Contaminated Blood Scandal. The issue of records being destroyed for no better reason than a lack of space in the storage facility in a particular NHS location was mentioned as an example of the need for better guidance.

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