Get Your Health Records in One Place in an Hour

Step 1: Ask for your results (15 minutes)

Do this first. The replies take a few days, and you can do steps 2 and 3 while you wait.

• In Australia, check My Health Record or the my health app. Most pathology and imaging reports are now uploaded by default. Most blood and urine reports are visible to you as soon as they are uploaded. Anatomical pathology, cytopathology, genetic tests and most scans are held for five days.
• Ask your GP practice for copies of your blood results and test reports from the last three years. You have a legal right to access your health information. A private practice can charge a fee for giving you the copies, but the fee must not be excessive and it cannot charge you for making the request. If it refuses, it must tell you in writing why, and how to complain. Expect a reply within a reasonable period, usually 30 days.
• In England, GP practices must give you online access to new entries in your record, including test results, through the NHS App. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not use it for GP records, so ask the practice. For anything not shown, a subject access request is free in almost all cases and must usually be answered within a month, or up to three months if it is complex.
• Ask for the numbers and the lab's reference range, not a summary that says normal.

Write a short, polite email to my [GP practice or pathology lab] asking for copies of my health records. I live in [Australia or the UK].

Ask for copies of all my blood test results and other test reports from the last three years, showing the actual values, units and reference ranges, sent as PDFs by email if possible.

If I live in Australia, say I am requesting access to my health information under Australian Privacy Principle 12. If I live in the UK, say this is a subject access request under UK GDPR.

Ask them to tell me about any fee before they go ahead. Keep it under 150 words. Leave placeholders for my name, date of birth and contact details, and do not ask me for them.

Step 2: Gather what you already have (20 minutes)

• Blood results from the last three years, including any from a health check, an insurance medical or a specialist.
• Other test reports: imaging, ECG, sleep study, bone density. Anything with a date and a result.
• Every medication and supplement you take, with the dose.
• Diagnoses, operations and hospital stays, with the year.
• Family history. Parents, brothers and sisters: any heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high cholesterol at a young age, kidney disease, blood clots, dementia, or cancer and which one, with the age it started. Note separately anyone who died suddenly or unexpectedly before 60.
• Your wearable data. Every major service lets you export your own. Apple Health and WHOOP do it inside the app. Oura, Garmin and Fitbit do it on their website, not in the app, and the file can take a day or more to arrive. Note the device and how long you have worn it.

Step 3: Put it on one page (25 minutes)

Under the table, five lines

1. Medications and supplements. Name and dose.
2. Diagnoses and operations. With the year.
3. Family history. Who, what, and the age it started.
4. Your wearable, last month. Average overnight resting heart rate and average sleep, if you track them.
5. The one question you most want answered. Write it down before the appointment, not during it.

Before you use AI: keep it safe

• Store it somewhere private, not in a shared drive or a long email thread.
• Before you give it to an AI or a new health app, turn off the use of your conversations for training. ChatGPT: Settings, Data controls, Improve the model for everyone. Claude: Settings, Privacy, Help improve Claude. Gemini: Activity, Keep Activity. Turning it off applies to new chats only, not ones you have already had, and Gemini can still review some conversations for safety.
• Remove your name, date of birth, address and Medicare or NHS number from the reports first. The AI does not need them.
• Check what the AI produces against the original reports. AI can misread a scanned page or a unit, and it will not always tell you.
• Australia's privacy regulator advises against entering personal information, and especially health information, into publicly available AI tools. Treat that as the default and decide deliberately if you depart from it.

Or let your AI do the layout

I am going to share my health records: blood test reports, other test results, my medications and supplements, and my family history. Organise them into one page for an appointment with my doctor. Do not diagnose, interpret or give medical advice.

1. Build one table with these columns: Test, Unit, one column per test date (oldest on the left), Lab range, Lab. One row per test. Enter each result and unit exactly as printed.
2. Do not convert units. Do not put results from different labs or different units in the same row. If the same test was reported by different labs or in different units, give each its own row and say so. If the same test appears under more than one name, keep the names as printed and say they may be the same test, rather than merging them.
3. Under the table, list my medications and supplements with doses, my diagnoses and operations with the year, and my family history: who, what condition, and the age it started.
4. First, list any result the laboratory or my doctor has already marked urgent, critical, action required or similar. Quote that marking exactly as printed and tell me to contact my doctor promptly about it. Do not decide for yourself whether a result is urgent.
5. Then list any test that has moved in the same direction across three or more results, and any result outside the lab's range. Give only the facts: test, dates, values and range. Do not say what it means. End the list with: anything outside the lab's range is for my doctor to interpret, so ask rather than wait.
6. List anything missing or unclear: results without a date, unit or range, and any page you could not read. If you are unsure of a value, say so. Never guess.
7. Suggest up to five questions I could ask my doctor about these results, written as questions, not conclusions. Do not name a possible condition, cause or treatment in the questions.

Keep it to one page. End with this line: The one question I most want answered is: [write your question here]

What to look for

Before the appointment

Here is my one-page health record summary. I have an appointment with my [GP or specialist] about [the reason]. Do not diagnose, interpret or give medical advice. Help me prepare.

1. Put my questions in order, no more than five, using the order of importance I have given you. Do not re-rank them by how serious you think a result is.
2. Beside each question, note which results on my page it relates to.
3. If anything on my page is outside the lab's range, or marked urgent or critical on the original report, list it first so I raise it at the start. If anything is marked urgent or critical, also tell me to contact the practice promptly rather than wait for the appointment.
4. Keep it to half a page I can read in two minutes.

Keep in mind