Legal advice: Can I access a friend’s medical records for them?
If you access medical records without justifiable reason you could be breaching the Nursing and Midwifery Council code and breaking the law. Avoid it at all costs, advises legal expert Marc Cornock
Accessing a medical record without justifiable reason is something you absolutely must not do. Not only are you in danger of breaching the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) code, you could be charged with a criminal offence.
Access to medical records can only be undertaken for a limited number of reasons. From a nursing perspective, these relate to your need to access the records to perform an aspect of your nursing role.
Medical records are not owned by the person they concern, so although your friend may have given you permission to access their record, this is not justification for doing so. If your friend wants to access their
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