My wife works for the NHS and has direct access to medical records electronically, however all her searches are logged and if she were to access records from outside her patient list, this could be scrutinised.
I remember when my Father was ill, it would have been helpful if my wife could access his medical files so we could understand more, but she didn't do this because it was an ethical breach as she was not treating him.
It would have been helpful if my Father could have granted my wife access ethically. I guess if he'd had the NHS app on his phone, he could have opened it up for her to scrutinise.