Why keep a treatment history?

Keeping a short record of your treatment history can help in many ways:

• it can help you understand your health and treatment
• it can help if your doctor changes at your clinic
• it can help if you speak to other healthcare workers or to a treatment phoneline for advice
• it can help if you ever change hospitals or clinics, or if you want a second opinion, when on holiday or abroad, or if you move to another country.

Any treatment choice for your future care is closely linked to your previous treatment history.

This includes results from blood tests like the CD4 count, viral load and resistance tests, as well as the history of drugs you have used and your reasons for changing them. As treatment improves you could need this record for 20 years or more – and whether new treatments work may depend on previous treatment.

This record is important. If you change clinic, you should ask for your medical records to be forwarded, but this does not always happen – make sure that you have a record of your GUM or clinic number.

This record will help provide a useful record is all these situations.

Your doctor can provide you with details to help fill in this book but it does not replace your medical notes.

All patients have the right to see their medical records and to make photocopies from them.

i-Base can provide the Treatment Passport as a pocket size booklet – please call 020 7407 8488.