The NHS isn't really a single body at all. It's a vast, unimaginably complicated network of healthcare professionals, medical facilities, managerial organisatio

The NHS isn't really a single body at all. It's a vast, unimaginably complicated network of healthcare professionals, medical facilities, managerial organisations, supply chains, and so on, under the shared banner of being public-run and with strategic leadership appointed by the central government (modulo some devolution to different parts of the UK at various scales). In normal circumstances an individual's primary point of contact with the NHS is supposed to be their GP, and the GP's surgery will normally hold the main medical records for each person under their care. But then other parts of the NHS, such as hospitals or therapists, may hold their own records in connection with the specialised treatments they provide. There are all kinds of protocols for sharing health records between clinical professionals who are directly responsible for a patient's care and potentially others and successive governments keep meddling with them in ways that make you nervous about those others and what they get to know and what they can do with it.