Will the information recorded in psychiatric notes change when patients have the right to read them?

Abstract

Psychiatric patients have had the right to see their notes from 1 November 1991. The ‘Access to Health Records Act (1990)’ makes provision for certain parts of the record to be exempt, including information which may cause serious mental or physical harm to the patient or anyone else. In addition, patients should not have access to information given by third party informants unless appropriate consent has been obtained. The legislation only applies to records made after 1 November 1991. It does not cover informal arrangements where written application for access is not made.

The Access to Health Records Act: what difference does it make?

“…The questionnaire was developed following a pilot study with two earlier versions. It is designed to assess staff attitudes to The Access to Health Records Act and includes issues raised both in the Danish literature (Svendsen & Toftegaard, 1989;Andersen & Jorgensen 1989) and English literature (Bernadt et al, 1991;McShane et al, 1992). The questionnaire includes open and closed questions.…”