My experience with Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust raises a wider question about accountability, access to information, and the burden placed on ordinary people.
On 21 April 2026, I submitted a Subject Access Request for my own medical records to Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
The Trust acknowledged receipt on 12 May.
Months later, I was still trying to establish what had happened to my request, much like trying to get access to the right healthcare pathways and an actual root cause analysis lol.
On 9 June, two applications submitted through the Trust’s new portal were marked as rejected. The records available to me do not explain why. I had already made clear that these portal applications were not intended to replace, withdraw, or restart my original request.
Further correspondence followed. Yet the information I hold still does not establish that my original request has been fulfilled or satisfactorily resolved.
This is where my concern goes beyond the missing records.
What happens when the process becomes the problem?
When an institution fails to resolve an issue, we are told to escalate.
Contact another department. Write another letter. Submit another complaint. Wait for another response. Follow another procedure.
But what happens when each new stage simply transfers the responsibility elsewhere, while the original problem remains?
At what point does escalation stop being a route to accountability and become another demand on the time and energy of the person seeking answers?
An ordinary person is expected to comply with deadlines, supply information, follow instructions and retain evidence. Those expectations are reasonable.
But accountability must work in both directions.
A reference number is not a resolution. An acknowledgement is not delivery. A complaints procedure is not proof that a complaint has been addressed.
And a right that cannot practically be exercised is worth far less to the person who holds it.
The questions Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust needs to answer
- Why has my Subject Access Request, originally submitted on 21 April 2026, not been demonstrably resolved in the records available to me?
- Why were two portal applications marked as rejected without an explanation appearing in the records I hold?
- What happened to my original request when the Trust introduced its new portal process?
- Was a lawful extension applied, and was I notified?
- What searches have been undertaken, what information remains outstanding, and when will I receive a substantive response?
These are questions about documented events. I am not claiming to know anyone’s motives, and I am not making allegations against individual staff members. I am asking the organisation to account for its handling of my request.
I recognise the pressures NHS staff face. But acknowledging those pressures does not remove the need for transparency about how an individual’s rights are being handled.
This is about more than one set of medical records
How many people have pursued a legitimate concern until the process itself has become so exhausting that they simply stop?
How many unresolved problems disappear from view because the person affected no longer has the time, energy, health or resources to keep chasing them?
Those are questions worth examining through evidence, not assumptions.
If people are routinely required to navigate layers of administration without receiving clear answers, then the effectiveness of those systems deserves public scrutiny.
The answer cannot always be to tell the individual to climb another rung of the same ladder.
I am putting my experience on the public record
I want a clear explanation of what happened to my request, an account of the portal rejections, and access to the personal medical information I requested.
I also want the wider issue recognised: procedures should exist to resolve problems, not become an endless substitute for resolution.
I should not have to become a campaigner simply to obtain an answer about my own medical records.
Accountability is not measured by how many stages a person has been made to navigate. It is measured by whether the problem is addressed, the decisions are explained, and the person’s rights are respected.
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: the questions are clear. I am asking for clear answers.
And to anyone else who has found themselves trapped between an unresolved problem and an endless process, your experience deserves to be heard too.
The purpose of accountability should be to resolve the problem, not exhaust the person raising it.
“One of the greatest failures of modern systems is the use of compliance as a substitute for accountability. People are expected to follow every rule, meet every deadline and navigate every procedure, while the systems responsible for serving them can fail without delivering meaningful resolution.
The burden shifts from the institution fixing the problem to the individual endlessly pursuing it. The process continues, the paperwork accumulates, and the original problem remains.
A system should be judged by the outcomes it delivers, not by how efficiently it makes people comply with a process that has failed them.“