Enrolment Forms

How long do practices need to keep their enrolment forms?

Practices need to keep enrolment information for 7 years and clinical information should be archived and kept for at least 10 years after the last consultation.

The Medical Council put out an advisory on this: Maintenance-and-retention-of-records.pdf

If you store your enrolment forms by scanning them into your practice management system then there are 2 things to be aware of:

1. Ensure that the scan has captured the entire form - particularly the signature of the patient as an inadequate scan will not be a defence in an MoH audit
2. In the event of an audit the scanned form will be sufficient however should you ever find yourself in court proceedings relating to the enrolment of a patient then the court will not accept a scanned document as proof of enrolment.