Not Just Patients
Hi! We’re Caitlin Rich and Clarinda Cerejo, Co-Hosts of Not Just Patients, a global podcast that aims to bring stakeholders together and break barriers to meaningful patient involvement in healthcare.
We both live with rare diseases, are EUPATI Fellows, and work in healthcare research and communications. Over the past two and a half years, we have hosted in-depth conversations with a range of healthcare stakeholders to examine how healthcare can become more inclusive, collaborative, and effective.
We were recently interviewed by the World Medical Journal, won the Acquisition International Non-Profit Organisation Award for Excellence in Driving Patient Engagement 2025, and were named Patient Advocacy Podcast of the Year in the Corporate LiveWire Awards 2025/2026.
Our guests are patient advocates, healthcare professionals, industry representatives, and other stakeholders who interact with the health system at large. Each of our guests brings in a unique perspective on patient engagement and shares stories of initiatives they’ve championed or been involved in.
We will soon be launching a special series on Underserved Communities in Healthcare. The series will explore what meaningful patient involvement looks like for communities that healthcare systems too often fail to adequately see, hear, or design for. This includes children and young patients, disabled and neurodivergent people, LGBTQIA+ communities, racial and ethnic minorities, and people from lower- to middle-income countries.
Have feedback or suggestions for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at info@notjustpatients.com or find us on LinkedIn.
Not Just Patients
Empowering Patients through Access to Medical Records | Richard Fitton
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Join us for an enlightening conversation with Dr Richard Fitton, retired GP and long-time champion of patient access to electronic medical records, as we explore what it really means to share data, power, and responsibility with patients.
Richard’s journey spans more than four decades of pioneering work: from early computerised records in the 1980s, to leading one of the first NHS pilots for online patient record access, moderating the WHO working group that drafted the 8th Patient Right of the WHO Patient Safety Charter – the right to access your own records.
In this episode, we unpack what medical records are, who they serve, and how they can enable genuine patient-clinical partnership. We also explore global barriers digitization and how they can be overcome, sharing hopeful stories of how small efforts have scaled to influence national guidance and international policy.
This episode offers a practical and deeply human vision for how medical records can support patients in becoming informed partners in their own care.
Chapters:
- 00:00:00 - Introductions and episode overview
- 00:03:21 - Defining electronic health records
- 00:12:06 - Richard's journey with health records
- 00:22:11 - The Harold Shipman serial killer case
- 00:26:36 - Sharing records with patients
- 00:32:28 - Barriers and global disparities
- 00:36:25 - Driving global adoption
- 00:42:59 - Initiatives to overcome barriers
- 00:50:22 - Advice for clinicians
- 00:53:28 - Reflections with Caitlin and Clarinda
Resources and abbreviations:
- 8th Patient Right of the WHO Patient Safety Charter
- Lawrence Weed Problem-Oriented Medical Record
- Black Report
- Acheson Report
- Harold Shipman case
- Department of Health Copying Letters to Patients working group
- NHS – National Health Service (UK)
- GP – General Practitioner
- EHR / EHRs – Electronic Health Record(s)
- GMC – General Medical Council (UK)
- WHO – World Health Organization
- ICD – International Classification of Diseases (referenced via “Reed codes from ICD and SNOMED”)
- SNOMED – Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine – Clinical Terms
- WMJ - World Medical Journal
- NICE - National Institute of Clinical Excellence
- Prior episode with rare disease advocate Emily Reuben OBE
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Website: notjustpatients.com
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Have feedback or suggestions? We'd love to hear from you.
Email: info@notjustpatients.com
