Transfer of your GP health records

Practitioner Services will not routinely trace health records from, or forward records to, health care providers in countries outwith the United Kingdom.

If you are returning to the United Kingdom, or your last registration with a GP practice was cancelled your records may be held in storage. If they are we will trace these through our records or NHS Central Register Scotland when you next register with a GP practice.

If we have been advised that you have been in HM Forces, your civilian records will have been kept in storage during your period of service. If you came under the care of a Service Medical Officer, your record would have been transferred on posting. These will be traced through the Community Health Index or NHS Central Register Scotland when you next register with a GP practice.

There are regulations that require records to be held for a minimum amount of time before being destroyed.

Community Health Index

Practitioner Services uses the NHS Scotland national patient database to keep a note of the GP practice that a patient is registered at. Other non-clinical information is also stored, eg patient name, date of birth, address and GP details.

The database is called the Community Health Index (or CHI). The unique index number generated for each patient is called the CHI number and this number is used throughout NHS Scotland to accurately identify patients.

The information is used to manage the transfer of medical records, make payments to GP practices for medical services provided to patients, and to issue medical exemption certificates and prescription pre-payment certificates.

NHS Central Register Scotland

NHS Central Register is part of National Records of Scotland. This organisation provides a range of services to the NHS.

These include issuing NHS numbers and keeping a record of the NHS Board area that a patient lives in.

It communicates with similar organisations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland when patients move between countries in the United Kingdom.

For further information visit the NHS Central Register website.

Retention Periods

If you're no longer registered with a GP practice, Practitioner Services stores your GP health records. The length of time we keep the records depends on the reason the records are being stored. These are set by our minimum retention periods and are shown below. When the retention period has passed, the records are destroyed.

If you are going to live abroad and require a copy of your records, you can apply to your GP practice for this prior to embarking. If we hold your records you can apply by contacting one of our Regional Offices. This service may incur a charge.