Your summary care record (called an Emergency Care Record in Scotland and Northern Ireland) is a short overview of your key medical details. It includes things like allergies, medications, tests, and both major and minor health incidents. This document is usually between 1-5 pages long and gives us the information we need to make a safe medical assessment.
As part of your application, we ask for access to this record electronically. However, sometimes GP surgeries haven't set up electronic access for patient records, or you may not have given permission for your records to be accessed in this way.
Most GP surgeries can provide this summary while you wait, or they can email it to you if they're set up to do so. It usually doesn't take long to process.
Once you have a copy of your summary care record, simply send it to us using the link in your request email. You can either attach photos of each page or the PDF file that your surgery sends to you. This will go straight to our clinical team, allowing them to complete your assessment as soon as possible.
Please note that this is not a request for a full copy of your medical file (also known as a subject access request). That can take up to 28 days to produce and contains far more information than we need for your application.
If your GP practice says it will take a long time, make sure they understand that you are asking for the correct summary care record, not your full medical file.