How we use your personal information
This fair processing notice explains why the GP practice collects information about you and how that information may be used.
The health care professionals who provide you with care maintain records about your health and any treatment or care you have received previously (e.g. NHS Trust, GP Surgery, Walk-in clinic, etc.). These records help to provide you with the best possible healthcare.
NHS health records may be electronic, on paper or a mixture of both, and we use a combination of working practices and technology to ensure that your information is kept confidential and secure. Records which this GP Practice hold about you may include the following information;
- Details about you, such as your address, legal representative, emergency contact details
- Any contact the surgery has had with you, such as appointments, clinic visits, emergency appointments, etc.
- Notes and reports about your health
- Details about your treatment and care
- Results of investigations such as laboratory tests, x-rays etc
- Relevant information from other health professionals, relatives or those who care for you
To ensure you receive the best possible care, your records are used to facilitate the care you receive. Information held about you may be used to help protect the health of the public and to help us manage the NHS. Information may be used within the GP practice for clinical audit to monitor the quality of the service provided.
Some of this information will be held centrally and used for statistical purposes. Where we do this, we take strict measures to ensure that individual patients cannot be identified.
Sometimes your information may be requested to be used for research purposes – the surgery will always gain your consent before releasing the information for this purpose.
Risk Stratification
Risk stratification data tools are increasingly being used in the NHS to help determine a person’s risk of suffering a particular condition, preventing an unplanned or (re)admission and identifying a need for preventive intervention. Information about you is collected from a number of sources including NHS Trusts and from this GP Practice. A risk score is then arrived at through an analysis of your de-identified information using software managed by the EMIS WEB Clinical system and is only provided back to your GP as data controller in an identifiable form. Risk stratification enables your GP to focus on preventing ill health and not just the treatment of sickness. If necessary your GP may be able to offer you additional services.
Please note that you have the right to opt out.
Care.data
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 allows the Health & Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) to collate personal confidential data from GP practices without seeking your specific consent. Care.data is an example of a service that NHS England (not individual GP practices) has set up to use HSCIC to collect data from GP practices about patients. This is in order to make increased use of information from medical records with the intention of improving healthcare and the quality of care delivered to patients.
Information will be extracted from GP systems and includes personal confidential data such as referrals, NHS prescriptions and other clinical data. It also includes identifiers like your date of birth (DoB), postcode, NHS number and gender. This is so that your information can be linked with data from other healthcare settings for example, the hospital.
If you want to know more please click on the link below to view the leaflet “How information about you helps us to provide better care”
http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/cd-leaflet-01-14.pdf
For further information, click on the link below.
http://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/tsd/care-data/
Other Data Sharing / Access Projects
National Diabetes Audit
The National Diabetes Audit (NDA) is a major national clinical audit, which measures the effectiveness of diabetes healthcare against NICE Clinical Guidelines and NICE Quality Standards, in England and Wales.
The NDA is delivered by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), in partnership with Diabetes UK. It collects and analyses data and produces reports for a range of stakeholders to use to drive changes and improve the quality of services and health outcomes for people with diabetes.
The National Diabetes Audit (NDA) is the one of the largest annual clinical audits in the world, integrating data from both primary and secondary care sources, making it the most comprehensive audit of its kind.
How do we maintain the confidentiality of your records?
We are committed to protecting your privacy and will only use information collected lawfully in accordance with:
- Data Protection Act 1998
- Human Rights Act 1998
- Common Law Duty of Confidentiality
- Health and Social Care Act 2012
- NHS Codes of Confidentiality and Information Security
- Information: To Share or Not to Share Review (click here to read further information about this)
Every member of staff who works for an NHS organisation has a legal obligation to keep information about you confidential.
We will only ever use or pass on information about you if others involved in your care have a genuine need for it. We will not disclose your information to any 3rd party without your permission unless there are exceptional circumstances (i.e. life or death situations), where the law requires information to be passed on and / or in accordance with the new information sharing principle following Dame Fiona’s Caldicott information sharing review (Information to share or not to share) where “The duty to share information can be as important as the duty to protect patient confidentiality.” This means that health and social care professionals should have the confidence to share information in the best interests of their patients within the framework set out by the Caldicott principles. They should be supported by the policies of their employers, regulators and professional bodies. To view the Caldicott principles, please click here.
Who are our partner organisations?
We may also have to share your information, subject to strict agreements on how it will be used, with the following organisations;
- NHS Trusts / Foundation Trusts
- GP’s
- NHS Commissioning Support Units
- Independent Contractors such as dentists, opticians, pharmacists
- Private Sector Providers
- Voluntary Sector Providers
- Ambulance Trusts
- Clinical Commissioning Groups
- Social Care Services
- Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC)
- Local Authorities
- Education Services
- Fire and Rescue Services
- Police & Judicial Services
- Voluntary Sector Providers
- Private Sector Providers
- Other ‘data processors’ which you will be informed of
You will be informed who your data will be shared with and in some cases asked for explicit consent for this happen when this is required.
We may also use external companies to process personal information, such as for archiving purposes. These companies are bound by contractual agreements to ensure information is kept confidential and secure.
Access to personal information
- You have a right under the Data Protection Act 1998 to request access to view or to obtain copies of what information the surgery holds about you and to have it amended should it be inaccurate. In order to request this, you need to do the following:
- Your request must be made in writing to the GP - for information from the hospital you should write direct to them
- There may be a charge to have a printed copy of the information held about you
- We are required to respond to you within 40 days
- You will need to give adequate information (for example full name, address, date of birth, NHS number and details of your request) so that your identity can be verified and your records located
Objections / Complaints
Should you have any concerns about how your information is managed at the GP, please contact the GP Practice Manager. If you are still unhappy following a review by the GP practice, you can then complain to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) via their website (www.ico.gov.uk).
If you are happy for your data to be extracted and used for the purposes described in this fair processing notice then you do not need to do anything.
If you do not want your personal data being extracted and leaving the GP practice for any of the purposes described, you need to let us know as soon as possible.
We will then enter clinical codes into your records that will prevent data leaving the practice and / or leaving the central information system at the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) for use by secondary providers.
Change of Details
It is important that you tell the person treating you if any of your details such as your name or address have changed or if any of your details such as date of birth is incorrect in order for this to be amended. You have a responsibility to inform us of any changes so our records are accurate and up to date for you.
Notification
The Data Protection Act 1998 requires organisations to register a notification with the Information Commissioner to describe the purposes for which they process personal and sensitive information.
This information is publicly available on the Information Commissioners Office website www.ico.org.uk
The practice is registered with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO).
Who is the Data Controller?
The Data Controller, responsible for keeping your information secure and confidential is:
Woodlands Medical Practice