How long should you keep lab results and imaging reports?

Keep lab results and imaging reports for at least 7–10 years. Any result flagged as abnormal, or a baseline measurement for an ongoing condition, should be kept indefinitely — permanently where storage allows.

Can you request old medical records from a hospital?

Yes. In most countries patients have a legal right to their records. Hospitals, GP practices, and specialists can provide copies on written request, though response times vary. Request early if you are planning an international move or starting with a new provider.

What records are most critical for internationally mobile families?

Vaccination records, current medication lists, allergy documentation, active diagnosis summaries, and recent specialist letters cover the vast majority of what new healthcare providers and international schools request at first registration.

What should I do if old medical records have been lost?

Contact the original provider and request copies — most are legally obliged to supply them. For records older than 10 years, institutions may have destroyed them under retention policy, but a confirming letter is sometimes available. Going forward, maintaining a continuous digital record prevents future losses.

Do children need different records to adults?

Children need the same core categories plus birth records, newborn screening results, developmental assessments, and a complete childhood vaccination history. These are specifically required at international school enrolments and paediatric registrations in new countries.

What Medical Records Should You Keep? A Family Guide

A guide to what medical records every family should keep, for how long, and why. Learn which documents are worth storing permanently and which can be safely discarded.

Not every piece of health documentation needs to be kept forever. But some records are irreplaceable — and losing them tends to surface at the worst possible moment: a school enrolment desk in a new country, an emergency department that speaks a different language, a specialist who needs context that no longer exists.

This guide covers which records to keep permanently, which to retain for a defined period, and why access at the point of need is as important as the records themselves.

Records to keep permanently

These categories should never be discarded. They are either impossible to recreate or remain clinically relevant throughout life:

Vaccination records — Complete immunisation history from birth. Cannot be reconstructed if lost. Required by international schools, travel health clinics, border authorities, and new GPs in almost every country. A missing childhood record can mean repeating vaccines at significant cost and inconvenience.
Surgical and operative records — Operative reports, anaesthesia notes, implant documentation (joint replacements, cardiac devices, plates, screws, mesh), and post-operative discharge summaries. These are critical if a complication or revision occurs years later.
Serious diagnosis documentation — Records of cancer diagnosis and treatment, serious infections, organ dysfunction, cardiac events, and any condition that required hospitalisation or specialist management. Even when resolved, future physicians need the history.
Allergy documentation — The specific substance, the reaction type, and the severity grade. This is the highest-risk category in medicine. A severe drug allergy that is not recorded or not accessible can be life-threatening.
Birth records — Birth certificate, newborn screening results, and neonatal records. These form the foundation of a child's health record and are referenced throughout childhood and into adult life.
Genetic and hereditary findings — Results of genetic testing, documented hereditary conditions, and family history assessments. Increasingly relevant as predictive medicine and preventive screening expand.

Records to keep for 7–10 years

These records have strong clinical relevance in the medium term:

Lab results and blood tests — Particularly any result flagged abnormal, any baseline measurement for a chronic condition (thyroid, lipids, glucose, renal function), and any investigation that led to a diagnosis or change in treatment.
Imaging reports — X-ray, MRI, CT, ultrasound, nuclear imaging. Retain the written report at minimum. Physical films or disc copies are useful but the report text captures the clinical findings.
Specialist letters and referral summaries — Consultant letters, discharge summaries, and referral responses contain context that GP records often lack. Particularly important when changing countries and healthcare systems.
Prescription and dispensing records — Useful when continuing long-term medications internationally. A record of the drug name, dose, and prescribing indication helps foreign pharmacies and physicians understand the treatment plan.

Records useful but lower priority for long-term retention

These can be kept but are less critical if storage or organisation is a constraint:

Routine appointment notes where no diagnosis or treatment was initiated
Insurance pre-authorisation letters for closed episodes
Administrative correspondence with no clinical content
Duplicate copies of records held elsewhere in more complete form

What happens when records are missing: a real-world scenario

A family relocating from Germany to Singapore registers with a paediatric clinic. The international school requires up-to-date vaccination records for enrolment. The records are held on a German insurance portal — inaccessible outside the country without the specific app. The parents cannot recall the exact vaccination dates. The school requires either a confirming doctor's letter or repeat vaccinations for several antigens.

This scenario plays out across thousands of international school enrolments every year. The same gap arises at new GP registrations, travel health clinics, and emergency departments. A well-maintained portable record — structured and accessible offline — would have prevented the entire episode.

For adults, the equivalent problem is a new cardiologist asking for a baseline echocardiogram from three years ago that exists only on a hospital's internal system in a country the family left in the interim.

Why access matters as much as retention

A record stored in a hospital portal that only works in one country, a folder at home, or an email inbox from five years ago is functionally the same as a lost record — at the point of need. The goal is not just retention but structured, portable, offline-accessible records that can be presented to any healthcare provider, in any country, without delay.

See what a doctor-ready medical summary looks like when records are properly organised and accessible.

How to organise the records you keep

The most practical structure organises records by person first, then by category:

Maintain a current summary — medications, allergies, active conditions, vaccinations
Store supporting documents linked to the relevant summary entries
Keep a chronological timeline of significant health events
Ensure everything is accessible from any device, in any country, without depending on a specific portal

See the full guide on how to organise medical records and use the family medical records checklist to ensure nothing critical is missing.

Frequently asked questions

What medical records should you keep permanently?

Vaccination records, surgical records, serious diagnosis documentation, allergy records, birth records, and genetic findings should all be kept permanently. These are irreplaceable or remain clinically relevant throughout life.

How long should you keep lab results?

Keep lab results for at least 7–10 years. Any result flagged abnormal or used as a baseline for an ongoing condition should be kept indefinitely — permanently where possible.

What records matter most for families moving internationally?

Vaccination records, current medication lists, allergy documentation, active diagnosis summaries, and recent specialist letters. These cover the vast majority of what international schools and new healthcare providers request at first registration.

Key takeaway: Families who prepare a written record of what they keep — and what they are missing — identify gaps before they become urgent. The most common gap across internationally mobile families is complete vaccination records for children born in more than one country.

Real-world scenario

A woman in her late forties is referred to a cardiologist in her new city following a routine check-up. The cardiologist asks for any previous ECG or cardiac imaging results. She had a stress ECG done five years earlier in another country — a clean result that would immediately reassure the cardiologist and likely prevent a repeat test. But the result was in a hospital patient portal she stopped receiving login emails for three years ago, in a country whose records system operates entirely in a language she does not speak. The record existed. She did not have it. She had the repeat test. The lesson is not that older records are always needed — most are not. It is that when an older record is needed, the inability to produce it has real costs: time, money, and occasionally clinical risk. Knowing which records to keep, and keeping them, is inexpensive insurance.

❌ Without: Clean ECG result exists but locked behind an expired portal in another country. Repeat test required. Cost, time, unnecessary radiation exposure.

✅ With PRIVAWELL: ECG stored in portable vault, produced in seconds to the new cardiologist. Repeat test avoided. Consultation moves straight to care.

⏱ 3 weeks + repeat test → immediate access,

Related reading: Preparing medical records when moving abroad — how keeping the right records prevents post-relocation follow-up. Doctor visit preparation — which records every consultation requires. Full medical records guide — the complete framework for what to collect and keep.

Start Organising Your Family Records

What is PRIVAWELL?

PRIVAWELL is a private family health record vault that helps internationally mobile families organise, store, and share medical records across countries. It is not a wellness tracker or fitness app.

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