Patients Know Best

Emails from patients know best will come from the following email address no-reply-uk@patientsknowbest.com

If you have been a patient of Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust since May 2017 and we have your email address you may have received an email inviting you to register for Patients Know Best.  If you haven't received an email you can register through their website at www.patientsknowbest.com/register/.

When you register for Patients Know Best via an invite from Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, you will see our logo.  However, if you have been a patient with another Trust in the past or another Trust has processed some of your test results on our behalf your record may reflect this and show their welcome message and logo.

You can go to the Sharing tab and check which trusts and organisations you are sharing your Patients Know Best record with and amend if you wish.

If you have registered with Patients Know Best you will be able to view the following in your record:

• Allergy information
• Address and contact information
• Appointment information
• From January 2025 some blood test results

We will be making more information such as test results and appointment details available in Patients Know Best on an ongoing basis.  If you have a long term condition you may also wish to use your Patients Know Best record to log your symptoms.

Patients Know Best is a secure online space to view some of your hospital information with instant notifications when new information is made available.

• Your information available on any internet-enabled device, anywhere, anytime.
• The option (if you wish) to share this information with family, carers and health professionals.
• Paperless online access to your personal health information at the Trust.
• Environmentally-friendly, less paper means reducing the impact on the environment.
• Helps to lower postage costs for the Trust by reducing the number of letters sent, helping to focus budgets where most needed.

This service is free to our patients and is offered using the NHS-accredited Patients Know Best system. It’s part of our promise and ongoing commitment to give you more choice and control over your care. The service will allow you to:

View your medical information

Record important medical information

• Allergies
• Data from wearable devices (e.g. glucometers or Fitbits)
• Symptoms

Share and control access to your health record

• Share with a carer, family member or other health and care professionals involved in your care, e.g. your GP, pharmacist, at-home care provider or a paramedic during an emergency.
• Get access whether you are at home, in another part of the country or even abroad.
• Monitor who has access and control what parts of your records they can see.
• Consent to share information for research of your choice.

Sharing your medical information, can be critical for many patients, particularly if you have a long-term condition or any specific care needs.

Manage your health, treatment and communications

• Monitor and track symptoms
• Keep a health journal
• Access resources tailored for you by your healthcare team

Only patients aged 16 and over will be able to register for a Patients Know Best account.  If you are 16 or older once you are registered you can choose to share your record with a relative, carer or health professional including your GP.  You can choose what information is shared and remove permission for someone else to view your record.

No, each patient that registers for Patients Know Best must have their own email address. Your email address is used to identify you on the Patients Know Best Portal and the NHS App and therefore must be unique to you.  However, you can share your portal record with a family member or carer as detailed below.

If a family member or carer supports you with your healthcare then you can add them to your Patients Know Best portal record in the ‘Sharing’ section. This will allow them to set up their own account and allow you to control the level of access they have to your record. This may be helpful in ensuring you can get to your appointments and have someone attend with you.

Anyone who has access to your portal record will be able to see basic details of your healthcare record. Before sharing, you should consider whether you would be happy with that person knowing details about both your current and any future healthcare information.

To invite the carer, a patient or a professional when in the patient record, needs to go to Sharing > Friends/Family and click ‘Add carer.’  Once completed, an invitation will be sent to the carer’s email address.

You can find more information about how to share your record on the Patients Know Best website here.

We are working on making as many results as possible available to patients and will start to release results from January 2025.  Some investigations and test results will not be available to patients to view or may have a delay because they may need to be explained by a clincian.  

When you are logged into your Patients Know Best record you need to look for the diary icon.  When you click on 'diary' the page is split into upcoming and past appointments.  You can click on any appointment to view the full details of that appointment.  

More information about how to find your appointments is available on the Patients Know Best website here.

Maternity records are kept on a separate system to your general health records for which there is not yet a patient portal.