When you leave a hospital after an inpatient stay — whether it was a planned procedure, an emergency admission or a day surgery — the hospital produces a document called a discharge summary (sometimes called a discharge letter or hospital letter). It is sent to your GP, sometimes to specialists, and increasingly directly to you.
The discharge summary is one of the most clinically important documents in your health record, yet many patients never read it, don't receive a copy, or misplace it. Here's what it contains and why keeping a copy permanently is worth the effort.
What a discharge summary contains
Every discharge summary is slightly different in format, but all of them cover the same core information:
- **The reason for admission** — the presenting complaint or the planned procedure, and the final diagnosis
- **Significant findings** — the results of tests, imaging, and examinations carried out during the admission
- **Treatment received** — procedures performed, medications administered, and the outcomes
- **Medications on discharge** — a complete list of every drug you were sent home with, the dose, frequency and intended duration. This is often the most clinically critical section.
- **Any medications stopped or changed** — why a drug was discontinued or adjusted, which is important for future prescribers to know
- **Follow-up instructions** — outpatient appointments booked, referrals made, wound care or physiotherapy instructions, and symptoms to watch for that should prompt you to return
- **Allergies and adverse reactions** — including any reaction observed during the admission
Why it matters long after discharge
Discharge summaries become more valuable over time, not less. Consider three scenarios in which having your discharge summary immediately accessible makes a direct difference to your care:
You're admitted to a different hospital in an emergency. The admitting team has no access to the other hospital's system. They don't know you had a pulmonary embolism six months ago and are on anticoagulants. Your discharge summary, accessible on your phone, changes their treatment decision within minutes.
You see a new specialist for a problem that arose during your last admission. Without the discharge summary, they are working from a referral letter that summarises an event they weren't present for. With it, they can read the exact findings and the reasoning behind treatment choices.
You notice a discrepancy. Medication lists compiled by different systems at different points in time sometimes diverge. Comparing your discharge medication list against your current repeat prescription occasionally reveals drugs that were stopped in hospital but never removed from your GP's system — a real and potentially dangerous situation.
Common problems with discharge summaries
Discharge summaries are not always accurate or complete. Research consistently finds error rates of 10–60% in discharge medication lists, with omissions being more common than incorrect entries. The causes are systemic — summaries are often written by junior doctors under time pressure at the moment of discharge — but the consequences can be significant.
Reading your own discharge summary is the most reliable check on these errors. If you spot a medication that wasn't changed, a diagnosis you don't recognise, or follow-up instructions that don't match what you were told verbally, raise it with your GP at your first post-discharge appointment.
How to get a copy
You have a legal right to your discharge summary in most countries. In the UK, you can request it from the hospital's Patient Records or Subject Access team; in the US it falls within your HIPAA right of access; in Australia your privacy law gives equivalent rights. Many hospitals now offer patient portal access where discharge letters are automatically made available.
Ask at the point of discharge whether you can receive a printed or electronic copy before you leave the building. If you're told it will be sent to your GP, request that a copy is also sent to you directly.
Storing it where it's actually useful
A discharge summary stored in a box at home is better than nothing — but only if you can find it, and only if you're coherent enough to access it when it's most needed. Looms lets you upload and tag your discharge summaries so they're searchable by date and condition, shareable with any provider in seconds, and accessible on your phone from anywhere.