The Medical Storage Burden

As is the case within many other sectors, in the medical profession there is an extremely large output of confidential and critical files, both digitally based (X-Rays, electronic records etc.) and traditional A4 paper records relating to every checkup and health issue a person may have.

In the UK various NHS branches archive files dating back over 90 years; much medical data relating to patients is literally kept for a lifetime—and for some files securely storing for up to a decade following an individuals death is an additional requirement.

Quantities of Stored Data

When you consider that every citizen has at least one record… that makes over 60 million files in Britain alone. In reality, the average and even the relatively healthy person amasses a large, fully bound document worth of files throughout their life. Try multiplying the above number by 300… that’s 18 billion files! This is only a very generalised estimate based on the "average" patient, but it still highlights the key storage issue for medical practice.

The question ‘how should we store this data?’ has been the subject of many medical reviews. The importance of this cannot be understated; consider a patient with an absent documented medical past being administered penicillin, only to succumb to a severe allergic reaction due to a lack of accessible patient history.

Guidance on Maintaining Records

To combat any such misplacement of information, the Department of Health’s Guidance on Maintaining Records lays out various file management standards for NHS practices throughout the UK. It is essential that medical practices meet these minimum requirements to avoid breaking the law and to safeguard patients from the circumstances described above.

One of the key aspects of this document is the provision of specific minimum retention periods depending upon the type of file being archived.

Retention Dates by Document Type

Some of the document types specifically listed in the article include:

All records relating to children & young people - until the individual reaches 25

Vaccination records – for 10 years following treatment

Maternity records – for 25 years subsequent to the last child’s birth

Mental health records – 20 years from the last related medical appointment

GP records – for an extra 10 years following the patient’s death

Jailed patients – must be kept indefinitely

Members of HM armed forces – must be kept indefinitely

Secure Storage Options

Obviously it is unrealistic to expect every NHS department to store the entirety of these backdated records onsite, especially in the cities with a very high population density. The healthcare budget is already spread extremely thinly and financial cuts are strife in the current economy, so wasting space which could be used more efficiently for new patient rooms or hospital beds on storage is often looked upon unfavourably.

To combat these issues many healthcare practices turn to offsite storage providers with a proven track record of quick retrieval, high-security measures in place, and financially beneficial rates; if additional space is recovered that meets and surpasses these key factors then practices and patients gain alike.