Primary Care Support England

3. Miss O complains PCSE redacted (edited to remove information) sections of her medical records before releasing them to her.

4. Miss O said she found the entire experience upsetting and stressful.

5. As an outcome to her complaint, Miss O wants unredacted copies of her medical records. She also wants there to be an improvement to NHS complaint handling processes, as she says she found it very unhelpful.

6. Miss O requested a copy of her GP medical records in August 2020. She told us this was to support a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) application. She had been removed from the patient list of her last GP practice, so the request was made to PCSE.

7. On 19 September 2020 PCSE sent Miss O her medical records for 1982 to2020. It explained there were certain gaps in these records, as a health professional from NHS England’s redaction team had removed records which were unreadable. And, some sections of the records were redacted.

8. Miss O was not satisfied that parts of her records had been redacted and made a complaint to PCSE. PCSE contacted her last GP practice and issued further medical records on 7 May 2021. However, these still included redactions.

9. Miss O was still unhappy and made a further complaint, which was escalated to NHS England as the data controller. NHS England responded to the complaint on 24 June 2021 and issued a further response on 30 March 2022.

12. In line with our internal guidance, before we decide if we should do a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there is an organisation that is better placed to deal with the concerns. Some complaints can be looked at by us, and by other organisations. We would usually consider that only one investigation should take place. We considered whether another organisation is better suited to giving an answer to the complaint and whether it can provide the outcome Miss O seeks.

13. Miss O complained to us as she wanted to get unredacted copies of her medical records. PCSE told her it is only responsible for providing copies of the records and that NHS England, as the data controller, is responsible for the redactions.

14. According to PCSE’s website, when it gets a request for medical records, it orders these from an off-site storage facility. An NHS England health professional then reviews the request and records in line with the Data Protection Act 2018. Once the health professional confirms the records can be released, PCSE sends these copies out. This information seems to support what PCSE told Miss O about which organisation is responsible for the redaction of her records.

15. We spoke to Miss O by phone and explained that we thought the ICO was the most appropriate organisation to consider her complaint. The ICO is an independent organisation that deals with concerns about information rights. The ICO look at complaints about problems people have accessing personal information.

16. Miss O told us that she had already approached the ICO, but it had not responded to her. We contacted the ICO and asked it about this. The ICO told us it had completed an investigation and had found no evidence NHS England had done anything wrong as it had explained why information in her medical records had been withheld. The ICO provided a written response to Miss O’s complaint.

17. As this part of the complaint is within the ICO’s area of expertise and it has already made a decision, it would not be appropriate for us to reconsider it.

18. Miss O also told us that her desired outcome was to see an improvement in NHS complaint handling processes. She does not appear to have complained about PCSE’s handling of her complaint. Her only complaint is that PCSE has not released unredacted copies of her records. This means we cannot look at that part of the complaint.

Summary

19. We understand Miss O’s frustration at not having access to her full, unredacted medical records. After careful consideration of her complaint, we have decided that it would not be appropriate for us to reassess a decision that the ICO has already made. We recognise that this will be a disappointing decision, but we will not be taking any further action on this complaint.

1. We have carefully considered Miss O’s complaint about Primary Care Support England (PCSE) and decided not to investigate it further. This is because another organisation is better placed to deal with her concerns. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has already completed an investigation and given her a response.

2. We realise how important Miss O’s complaint is to her and recognise that this has been a stressful experience for her. We understand that our decision may be disappointing to her, and we are sorry for any more upset it causes.