Thanks Tony. Apologies for the slight delay in responding. I forwarded your query when you sent it on Saturday, and wasn’t on the forum on Tuesday when the response was received.
The information team have confirmed that people in England have a legal right to access their test results.
In England patients have a legal right to view their medical records and do not have to provide a reason for wanting to do so. These records would include any test results. The Patient’s Association has a good summary of the situation here -
https://www.patients-association.org.uk/seeing-your-medical-records and includes how to complain if you are unhappy with the process.
For more detail, the BMA has produced a guide for GPs and Practice Managers - Access to health records -
Access to health records (bma.org.uk) (Note, to avoid confusion health
records are not necessarily the same as health
reports – the latter being a report produced for a specific purpose e.g. working in a safety critical role or on a specific condition e.g. for life insurance. The rules around access to reports may be slightly different in certain cases).
There are certain, limited exceptions to providing access. But a request for test results is unlikely to fall into these unless it is part of repeated requests for substantially the same information.
Of course, the healthcare system is under considerable strain at the moment - especially in the current situation, where staff members may be being pinged and needing to self isolate - so some surgeries may have to be making pragmatic decisions about taking the time to proactively share results which don’t indicate any change of therapy?
