Getting reports and images

Prepared 3 September 2026 by Kya for a friend, for her partner. This is general information about the position in England, not legal advice. Points marked (law) are the statutory position as I understand it; check anything you intend to rely on formally.

The honest legal position

1. the patient has the right; her partner does not, until she gives it to him in writing. Right of access under UK GDPR Article 15 belongs to the patient (law). The front desk cannot give her records to a partner on his word alone, and would be in breach if it did. The signed authority letter (already drafted) fixes this. Get the patient to sign it today and hand a copy to the ward and to the records office.

2. The trust's 21 day process does have a legal footing, but it is a ceiling, not a floor. The statutory deadline for a subject access request is "without undue delay and in any event within one month" (law). NHS trusts set 21 days as an internal target to stay inside that. Nothing in the law stops them giving a report today; nothing in the law obliges them to. So "no legal basis" is not quite right, but "there is no legal reason it must take three weeks" is exactly right.

3. A subject access request is the slow door. It is the wrong door for what her partner needs today. The records office handles SARs. The people who can put the report in the patient's hand this afternoon are the clinicians looking after her.

The fast routes, in order

1. Ask the treating doctor, on the ward, today

The patient is an inpatient with capacity. Part of her care is being told the results of her own investigations. A doctor can print the radiology report from the system at the ward computer in under a minute. This is clinical communication, not a records request, and it is what the doctor last night said she would do.

Script for the patient (or her partner with the patient present and agreeing):

"I would like a printed copy of the CT and MRI reports from this admission, and a copy of the report from my MRI brain about ten months ago, today. I understand a formal records request takes weeks; I am asking as a patient to be shown and given my own results as part of my care. If you cannot do it, please tell me who on the ward can, and note my request in the record."

The last sentence matters. A request written in the notes is much harder to leave unanswered.

If the ward doctor cannot, ask for the consultant of the week or the ward manager / matron. If it is out of hours, the duty site manager (every hospital has one, contactable via switchboard) is the escalation when PALS is shut.

2. Make the earlier MRI a clinical question, not a complaint

The team today needs the earlier scan anyway. Growth between two scans is one of the most useful pieces of information they can have, and the Derriford skull base MDT will want the images. So ask it this way:

"Has the MRI from about ten months ago been pulled up and compared with the new one? Can the radiologist review the earlier scan against the new findings and add an addendum to the report? Can the earlier images be sent to Derriford with the new ones?"

This gets the review her partner wants, done by the right people, for the right reason, today, without anyone becoming defensive. If the earlier scan did show something in hindsight, an addendum is how that would be recorded, and the trust's Duty of Candour (a legal duty to tell the patient about a notifiable safety incident, Regulation 20) would then apply (law). The complaint can come afterwards; nothing is lost by waiting. The time limit for a formal NHS complaint is 12 months, and for clinical negligence three years from the date of knowledge (law).

3. The GP, for the earlier MRI report

The ten-month-old MRI report will almost certainly have been sent to the patient's GP at the time (as a letter or as the reported result). The GP practice can print it, or read it out, the same day, and does not have to go through the hospital at all. Her partner's urgent request to the GP is the right call for this specific document. Ask the practice for "the MRI brain report and any A&E discharge summaries from around [month] 2025".

4. The NHS App

Since late 2023 GP practices in England must give patients online access to their record through the NHS App (law). Hospital letters and results that were sent to the GP often show up there. The patient can check on her phone now: NHS App, "View your GP health record", then documents or test results. If the earlier MRI report is there, the problem is solved for that document in five minutes. Hospital scans from this week may also appear once reported, depending on how Cornwall shares.

5. The images themselves (DICOM)

Reports come from the clinicians; images come from the radiology department. Ask the ward to contact radiology, or go to the radiology reception, for a "copy of images on disc" or a link (many trusts now use a patient image portal). This is usually a separate short form, signed by the patient, and often faster than the full records request. For the treating team, images move between hospitals via the Image Exchange Portal; ask the consultant to confirm that both scans (old and new) have been sent to Derriford, because that is what actually matters for the patient's care.

6. Formal subject access request, in parallel

Put it in anyway, today, in writing, because the clock only starts when it is received (law). Email is fine. Address it to the trust's Access to Health Records / Information Governance team; state the patient's full name, date of birth, NHS number, what is wanted ("all imaging reports, discharge summaries and clinical notes from [dates], and copies of the images"), enclose the signed authority letter if her partner is submitting it, and say "I am asking that the imaging reports be provided immediately given ongoing urgent care, and the remainder within the statutory one month". Keep a copy.

When PALS is closed

• Ward manager or matron (on the ward).
• Call for Concern (Martha's Rule), 07826 872343, 24 hours. Treliske runs it. Answered by the Critical Care Outreach team. For a patient whose condition is deteriorating and not being adequately recognised by the ward team; raise it with the ward first, then call. Progressing pain and progressing cranial nerve signs qualify.
• Duty site manager via switchboard (any hour).
• The trust complaints team, or the Chief Executive's office, by email, with "urgent: current inpatient" in the subject.
• Healthwatch Cornwall (independent, can advocate; not an emergency service).

Where her partner is right, and where to be careful

Right: the patient is entitled to her results; a doctor promised them; the delay is unnecessary; the earlier scan needs to be looked at again; a written request forces an answer.

Careful: a lesion of this kind in the cavernous sinus can be genuinely hard to see on a standard MRI brain done without contrast, particularly if the scan was done for headache with a routine protocol. Whether anything was missed, and whether missing it fell below the expected standard, can only be judged by looking at the images. "It looks like something was missed" is a fair thing to think and a good reason to ask for the review. Saying "gross failure" to the team today will cost more than it gains, and it may not be true. Ask for the addendum, get the images, and keep the judgement for later.

Today's job is the consultation and the biopsy decision. The records will follow if the requests above are made in writing and in the notes.

Moving scans between hospitals (added 5 September 2026)

Emergency departments often say they cannot obtain images from another trust. Radiology and PACS teams can, through the NHS Image Exchange Portal, and it works fastest when the sending hospital pushes. The receiving hospital's radiology department can also request a pull.

• Treliske to Southampton (1 September CT and CT angiogram; 2 September MRI): ring Royal Cornwall Hospital switchboard, 01872 250000, ask for the PACS or radiology imaging team, and say: "the patient, NHS [removed], is at University Hospital Southampton. Please push her CT and CT angiogram of 1 September 2026 and MRI of 2 September 2026 to Southampton via the Image Exchange Portal today. I hold her written authority, which is on her record." Ask for the name of the person who sends them and the time.
• The November 2025 head MRI, Bodmin: the scanner at Bodmin may be run by a separate provider on behalf of the Trust. Ask the GP practice (St Austell) who reported it and where the images are held, then ask that provider or Royal Cornwall PACS to push the study to Southampton, and ask Southampton's neuroradiologist to read it side by side with the September 2026 scans. Ask for a copy of the written report as well.
• Reports on paper travel with the patient and should be photographed; images do not, and a repeated scan at the new hospital is not wasted when the surgeons want their own protocol, but the earlier scan cannot be repeated and must be fetched.