ICO calls on social care leaders to improve access to care records

The Information Commissioner's Office has urged social care leaders to publicly support its Better Records Together campaign, which was launched in December to transform how care records are created, handled, and accessed.

The ICO pointed to an online resource for senior leaders and issued a five-step call to action to champion records management, implement specific care records standards, sufficiently resource teams, provide staff training, and invest in sustainable record-building. The intervention follows research by the regulator revealing that 89% of people attempting to access records via Subject Access Requests (SARs) were left with unanswered questions and concerns, while 71% experienced poor communication and 69% severe delays. Some people were left waiting up to sixteen years.

To address these systematic failures, the ICO is running a UK-wide supervision pilot across 2025 and 2026 to monitor 19 organisations. The ICO warned that enforcement action will be prioritised against bodies with persistent response delays. 

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