Unite in Health update on accessing health and care records
- Tuesday 29 September 2026
Recently there has been a number of high profile cases where health professionals have accessed health and care records which they were not permitted to access.
At this event on 29 September 2026, lead professional officer Dave Munday provided a presentation based on the NHS England Digital guidance. This reminded Unite members of what the situation is in respect of what is both acceptable and unacceptable.
Yes. Download a copy → Unite in Health accessing health and care records presentation [PDF]
Yes, you can watch the presentation on YouTube or on this page.
Yes, you can access the audio recording via a number of different podcast services including:
Yes. Access the NHS England Digital guidance here.
If you both have a legitimate reason to access the record it may be appropriate. If you do not have a legitimate reason but they do, we would advise you not to access the record.
The colleague should use their own access to look at the record. If you are in doubt, we would recommend you ask for guidance from the colleague(s) locally who lead on information governance or your line manager.
If the situation is 'life or death' it might be that accessing the record is a defensible step to take and this could be recorded.
If this is a situation that is likely to happen in your organisation it would be good to pre-empt the situation and get a policy agreed. However, if you don't have a legal reason to access a record, we would encourage you not to access it, irrespective of a request being made by a colleague that does have a legal reason to.
We shared an example: If a doctor asked a nurse to access a patient's record on the ward they were working on, this could be reasonable. If a doctor asked a nurse to access a record of a patient on another ward where the doctor was providing care but the nurse was not, we believe, without a policy in place that says differently, it would be inappropriate to access the record.
Organisations should have a learning culture embedded in the way they deal with issues and consider any mitigation or context behind the mistakes that we all make. If anyone wants to follow up with particular issues, I'd encourage getting in touch with their local reps or Unite officials after the session. Regulators especially want to see that registrants reflect on any errors made and to see how they will ensure that any behaviours will not be repeated.
We would expect that any employer should first ask permission of the employee as to whether they can access your health record. There is more detail about this on the Acas website.
Following the session, members who signed up to attend received a follow up email. Questions could be directed to this email address.
As a member the first person to contact is your local workplace representative. If you don't know who this person is, contact your local Unite office and they will be able to advise. They will be supported by a Unite regional officer and they can access further support with issues like this one.
It is likely that different employees will have different levels of access in organisations. If you are unsure, or have any further questions, it would be sensible to speak to the person or people who lead on information governance.
It should be that organisations are clear on procedures as to what information they are allowed to access. It is likely that they may have extensive access. The situation is the same that they must only access information that they have a appropriate reason to access.
Some of our paramedic members have also raised this issue with us, where they are sent to a patient but then diverted to a different patient before arriving.
It would be sensible for organisations to consider how best to deal with situations like this and agree policies that staff are made aware of and understand. It might be that organisations consider this reasonable and therefore it can happen.
If you employer takes a different approach, it should be successfully managed in a way that employees know what is expected of them.
It is important to make sure that any concerns that members have are properly considered however it does not change the legal and employee responsibilities that healthcare staff have nor the situations where staff can legally access records. There also needs to be appropriate safeguards in place concerning family members who are receiving care.