"Access to records"

I have been waiting to get a copy of my records for several months (since 2022) and I have had minimal communication from the trust about this. The information posted on the website is not adequate and not reassuring as it implies that people who are more distressed by the delays in the department will get their record request prioritised. I am not sure what criteria is being used to decide to prioritise people when all requests should be delivered in a timely way. 

It is very anxiety provoking. I asked for my records because I am trying to understand experiences that occurred when I was unwell. When I have contacted the trust I have been told by complaints that the records dept are having a hard time. It is not fair to place the responsibility on service users to be understanding of this when they are waiting for their records for lengths of time which are way outside of the legal timescales.

In my personal experience I feel it is reaching a point where the trust really do not seem to be doing very much to either communicate about the situation or to work more quickly to help people access their records. I have not made a formal complaint and I do not want or intend to do so because I know in a busy mental health trust there will be many competing priorities and many staff working extremely hard, but this is one area that is in my experience really very poor and does not seem to have improved since last autumn/winter.