04/05/2025
Have you signed up to the Swansea Bay Patient Portal yet? Did you know that one of the key benefits is the fast delivery of your blood test results straight to your own personal smartphone or PC – sometimes on the same day!
You’ll also get digital copies of hospital appointment letters and clinic letters sent directly to your device, so you get them faster than you would in the post, and they are always in one place and instantly at hand.
Join the growing numbers of Swansea Bay outpatients who have signed up to the Patient Portal (powered by Patients Know Best).
Since January around 2,000 patients have registered with the Swansea Bay Patient Portal, bringing the total so far to over 10,000.
The Swansea Bay Patient Portal (powered by Patients Know Best) is a secure on-line resource. It is designed for patients over the age of 16, who have recently, currently or are about to receive outpatient care from healthcare professionals at Swansea Bay University Health Board. Both patients and their healthcare professionals can enter information into the Swansea Bay Patient Portal. Patients can access the Patient Portal on their own smartphone, laptop, tablet or PC.
Please note - the Patient Portal does not contain all of your medical records. For advice and information on how to access medical records please email accesstorecords@wales.nhs.uk or ring 01639 862010 or 01639 862012.
However, there is plenty of information about your ongoing care which will be available for you on the Patient Portal.
If you are 16 and over, and recently, currently or about to receive outpatient care at Swansea Bay UHB, this is what the Patient Portal can offer you:
What's available on the Swansea Bay Patient Portal:
Blood test results
An approved list of Swansea Bay blood results are sent to the Swansea Bay Patient’s Portal record. This can save time telephoning to check the results of a test and patients can see the trend in results over time.
Clinic letters
Once a patient has signed up to Swansea Bay Patient Portal, they will receive digital copies of the clinical documents that a clinician may send them, their GP and others involved in their care.
Outpatient appointment letters
Some specialties' outpatient appointment letters are now available to read in the Swansea Bay Patient Portal, with more becoming available in the future.
This means you are likely to see your appointment letters more quickly than if they were delivered by traditional surface mail. If a digital letter is opened within 48 hours of being uploaded to the patient portal, then a paper copy will not be sent via traditional mail. This saves postage costs and reduces paper use, which is better for the environment.
Help and Information
Healthcare professionals can add links to helpful information for patients to access which can include websites, leaflets, audio files and videos. Patients can also add useful information into the library of resource they may have found online.
What you can do with the Swansea Bay Patient Portal:
Share your record with others
As a patient, you can choose to instantly share all, or parts of your Swansea Bay Patient Portal record; this could be with your doctor, relatives or carers or other people who are supporting you with your health and wellbeing.
Healthcare professionals involved in your care will also see information that has been added to your record.
When you sign up to the Patient Portal, you will be shown how to control who sees your information. The only exception to this would be in an emergency or life-threatening situation when a healthcare professional may decide they must consult a patient’s record. In this case there will be a computer record of who accessed your information and why.
Connect devices
Lots of healthcare devices such as blood pressure monitors, glucose monitors and fitness trackers can connect to the Swansea Bay Patient Portal. This allows you to track their measurements over time.
Record your health information
You can record information about your health e.g. symptoms, height, weight, blood pressure, etc and access a journal to record other thoughts and observations about your health.
Record your appointments
As an appointment letter arrives on your phone/device, you can make a note of the date and time in the 'appointments' diary.
Care plans
You may be asked to complete care plans including treatments and medications.
Messaging
You can communicate securely with your clinical team using instant messaging. (Not all healthcare professionals will use these options so you will need to check with your clinical team if this option is available.)
How to register for Swansea Bay Patient Portal
You will need a national UK NHS account first to sign up to the Patient Portal. (You may already have one, which you used during the pandemic to get proof of vaccination. However you may need to reset your password.)
Patients can both register with and later log into the Swansea Bay Patient Portal using their UK NHS login.
1) Go here for advice on how to set up a national UK NHS login account: https://help.login.nhs.uk/ Please note: Once you register your UK NHS account, you may get an automatic message referring to access to NHS England services, and mentioning GP surgeries in Wales. You can ignore this message. You don't need to click on any links from that message. Instead, please see below for next steps.
2) Once you have an NHS account, go here to register with, and then log into, the Swansea Bay Patient Portal: https://my.patientsknowbest.com/
Want to know even more? Get more information, including what patients who use the Swansea Bay Patient Portal think about it, on our website: https://sbuhb.nhs.wales/.../swansea-bay-patient-portal/
If you have any queries, please email the team on sbu.patientportal@wales.nhs.uk
