Patient Information Leaflet
Children and Young People
There is a general assumption amongst our patients that parents (or individual given parental responsibility) have access to their child’s medical record or details about their clinical care until they are the age of 16 or 18. This is in fact not the case.
Children over the age of 12 are generally considered to have the capacity to give or withhold consent to release medical records. More specifically, those under 16 should demonstrate that they have the capacity to make these decisions. Where the child is considered to be capable, then their consent must be sought before access is given to a third party, in this case the parent.
Access can be refused by the health professional where they consider that the child does not have capacity to give consent / decline decisions. If the appropriate health professional considers that a child patient is Gillick competent (i.e. has sufficient maturity and understanding to make decisions about disclosure of their records) then the child should be asked for his or her consent before disclosure is given to someone with parental responsibility.
If the child is not Gillick competent and there is more than one person with parental responsibility, each may independently exercise their right of access.
In all circumstances good practice dictates that a Gillick competent child should be encouraged to involve parents or other legal guardians in any treatment/disclosure decisions.
Therefore, our current Practice Policy is to remove parental access to all those who turn 14 unless we have written consent from the individual to state otherwise.
Do you want to manage your child's repeat prescriptions online?
You can also get online access to book their appointments and view their medical record.
Once this is set up, you can then access these services through the NHS App.
Find out how to Apply to access a child's online GP services (NHS website)
This service is designed and run by the NHS, so your personal information is safe.
