Applications for Access to a Deceased Service User’s Care Records Policy

Policy Guidance

It should be noted that the Data Protection Act 2018, which has replaced the 1998 Act does not cover the records of dead people. (A “data subject” covered by the Act is defined as an “identified or identifiable living individual to whom personal data relates”.)

What guidance there is about access to records of people who have died concerns applications to see medical records rather than care records. However, it is reasonable to think that the same principles governing applications to access medical records apply equally to care records (and in fact they might overlap).

These principles are that: