If you are aged 16 or over, you can ask someone to be your trusted person to help with your online health care. Your GP surgery may also call this being a proxy or nominated person.
A trusted person may be able to act for you by:
- ordering repeat prescriptions
- booking appointments
- contacting the surgery or speaking to surgery staff
- viewing test results or vaccinations
- accessing all or part of the GP health record, to help with health-related tasks and managing health issues
This does not stop you having access to your health services yourself.
Important
Your health record may contain sensitive information.
If someone is pressuring you for this information, contact your GP surgery immediately.
How giving family and carer access to a trusted person can help you
A trusted person can act on your behalf with your healthcare online. This can:
- help you with online health services if you cannot use them yourself
- relieve some of the pressure of living with long term health conditions
- help keep track of your medical care at times when you are feeling too unwell to manage it yourself
Setting up family and carer access with your GP surgery is more secure than sharing your own NHS login or GP app or website accounts, because:
- it provides more choice over what you share, protecting the medical information you want to keep private
- your trusted person will have to log in when they access your services online, so what they do on your behalf is recorded and secure
How to set up family and carer access
Ask your GP surgery if you can get a trusted person (also known as a proxy) to act on your behalf with your online healthcare.
Choose a trusted person to act on your behalf
You can choose a family member, friend or someone else you trust.
They do not need to live with you, but you need to be registered at the same GP surgery to get access.
You can ask for family and carer access for more than 1 person.
Choose how much access they can have
You do not have to give your trusted person access to all of your medical information. It's your choice.
Your GP surgery can set up different types of access, and limits on that access, depending on what you want or need help with.
Your GP surgery can:
- give your trusted person online access to GP services – you can choose which ones you want them to use for you
- set a date the trusted person has access from – so you do not have to share your whole medical history
- stop your trusted person seeing specific things in your record that you do not want to share
- agree with you that a trusted person can contact or speak to GP surgery staff for you – this is sometimes called "consent to speak" or "consent to discuss"
Removing access
You can remove access at any time, by telling your GP surgery.
How to find out who has family and carer access
If you are not sure who has family and carer access to your GP services and health record, ask your GP surgery.