Records and escalation

Four separate routes — clinical decision, complaint, your records, safeguarding — each with its own owner and clock. Use the right one for each question.

1 · Quick understanding

Question	Route	Who answers
Will I get treatment, and when?	Clinical request	The treating service or prescriber
Was I treated properly?	Complaint (then the Ombudsman)	The provider's complaints team
What does my record say?	Subject access request	The organisation's records or information team
Is someone at risk of harm now?	Safeguarding concern	The local authority safeguarding team, with health partners

2 · Possible explanations

Things stall when routes are mixed: a clinical question gets an answer from the complaints team; a records request gets sent to the Freedom of Information route; a safeguarding concern is filed as a complaint.

Your own personal information is requested through a subject access request under UK GDPR, normally answered within one calendar month. Freedom of Information is for information about an organisation, not your own records.

In one case a trust clinician directed a patient's request for his own records to the Freedom of Information process; the correct route is a subject access request.

AUTHOR-ACCOUNT

3 · Useful next action

Send one message per route
For records: name the specific documents and meetings you want (for example internal referral notes and meeting records about your treatment)
For complaints: keep to what happened and what you want put right
Keep dates of sending and the date each reply is due

4 · Treatment logic

One trust's safeguarding policy includes "an avoidable deterioration in physical or mental health" in its definition of significant harm, and lists the Human Rights Act articles on life, freedom from degrading treatment and private life as underpinning its duty.

A definition is a starting point, not a verdict. Statutory safeguarding duties also depend on whether the person has care and support needs, is experiencing or at risk of abuse or neglect, and cannot protect themselves. Check the current version of any policy before relying on it.

The same trust's complaints policy sets out its own process and timescales; its stated review date was 7 July 2026, so check the current version for later events.

Sources cited