Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have plans to reassess the guidance to GP practices on the erasure of medical records of adopted children, given (1) the increasing understanding of the usefulness of current and future genetic screening technologies, and (2) the use of family information to inform screening and treatment.

There are no plans at present to reassess the guidance. Primary Care Support England’s guidance states that current adoption legislation requires all adopted patients to be given a new National Health Service number, and all previous medical information relating to the patient to be put into a newly created medical record. If possible, electronic medical records should be merged on the relevant General Practice’s system with the new post-adoptive details. If this guidance is followed, then medical records for adopted children should not be erased.

A copy of this guidance is attached.