Inquiries, reviews, investigations and court orders

This NHS guidance is aimed at providing health and care services with advice on how to deal with requests from:

• statutory public inquiries, for example the UK COVID-19 inquiry
• non-statutory public inquiries, investigations and reviews of health and care, for example into the safety or quality of services at a specific hospital or in relation to a type of service across the country
• courts.

It is important to distinguish between a court order and a subject access request. The ‘Courts’ section within the guidance explains that a court order requires you to provide whatever the judge has requested, without redaction. Should you feel that there is information contained within the records that might cause serious harm to the patient or to a third party if the information were to become available to the patient, you are able to add an explanation of this when you return the request, but the information should still be included. Alternatively, prior to releasing the information, you can challenge the court order and go to court to argue the case with the judge, who may amend the order to request less information, or may hear your arguments but still request everything.