GDPR Privacy Notice (Downloadable and available at the practice upon request)

GDPR Privacy Notice

How We Use Your Information

This practice keeps medical records confidential and complies with the General Data Protection Regulation.

We hold your medical record so that we can provide you with safe care and treatment.

We will also use your information so that this practice can check and review the quality of the care we provide. This helps us to improve our services to you.

We will share relevant information from your medical record with other health or social care staff or organisations when they provide you with care. For example, your GP will share information when they refer you to a specialist in a hospital. Or your GP will send details about your prescription to your chosen pharmacy.
Healthcare staff working in A&E and out of hours care will also have access to your information. For example, it is important that staff who are treating you in an emergency know if you have any allergic reactions. This will involve the use of your Summary Care Record.
You have the right to object to information being shared for your own care. Please speak to the practice if you wish to object. You also have the right to have any mistakes or errors corrected.
We will use the data that we hold on your medical records to contact you directly in relation to your medical care. This may include text, phone or written communication.

National Opt Out (Type 2 Data)

What is it?

It means where the public can opt out of their information being used for any purpose beyond their care, the patients have to opt out themselves, by using the NHS App, calling the opt out team (0300 3035678) or using the website, www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters

What does it apply to:-

The opt out is only to sharing of data from the practice where the legal power for using so is the authorisation of the CAG – Confidentiality Advisory Group using s.251 powers – this is usually for research. But includes for GP’s CCG invoice validation, IFR validation and Risk Stratification. It does not apply to:-

Anonymised data sharing
Sharing where the patient has given consent (some research projects)
Public interest disclosures
Legal requirements to share

Please click here for the patient leaflet with more details.

Care Data

How information about you helps us to provide better care

Confidential information from your medical records can be used by the NHS to improve the services offered so we can provide the best possible care for everyone.

This information along with your postcode and NHS number but not your name, are sent to a secure system where it can be linked with other health information.

This allows those planning NHS services or carrying out medical research to use information from different parts of the NHS in a way which does not identify you.

You have a choice. If you are happy for your information to be used in this way you do not have to do anything.

If you have any concerns or wish to prevent this from happening, please speak to practice staff or complete the opt out form below and return to the surgery.

More information can be found here

http://www.nhs.uk/caredata

Opt Out Form (.pdf)

Fair Processing Notice

This fair processing notice explains why our Surgery collects information about you and how that information may be used and shared.

The employees and Partners of the Surgery use electronic and paper records to create and maintain an in-depth history of your NHS medical care at the Surgery and elsewhere, to help ensure you receive the best possible healthcare. Anyone who accesses your data within the Surgery can only do so using a ‘smartcard’ that identifies him/her and what he/she accessed.

We comply with the Data Protection Act in ensuring your personal information is as confidential and secure as possible.

WHAT INFORMATION DO YOU HOLD?

Records which The Waterside Medical Centre holds 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, telephone conversations and letters.
Notes and reports about your physical (including sexual) and mental health
Details about your treatment and medications
Results of investigations such as laboratory tests, x-rays etc
Relevant information from other health professionals, relatives or those who care for you
Reports from social services such as child protection reports or police reports if relevant to the care of you or your family
Private reports sent, at your request, to other organisations

CONFIDENTIALITY

We are committed to protecting your privacy and will only use information collected lawfully in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 (which is overseen by the Information Commissioner’s Office), Human Rights Act, the Common Law Duty of Confidentiality, and the NHS Codes of Confidentiality and Security.

All of our staff and contractors receive appropriate and on-going training to ensure they are aware of their personal responsibilities and have contractual obligations to uphold confidentiality, enforceable through disciplinary procedures.

We maintain our duty of confidentiality to you at all times. 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 third party without your permission unless there are exceptional circumstances (i.e. life or death situations), or where the law requires information to be passed on and / or in accordance with the new information sharing principle i.e. “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.

Your information may be used within The Waterside Medical Centre for clinical Audit to monitor the quality of the service provided or ensure we are providing appropriate care.

SHARING YOUR DATA OUTSIDE THE PRACTICE

Information held about you may be used to help protect the health of the public and to help the Department of Health manage the NHS. Some of this information will be extracted and held centrally and used for statistical purposes. Where we do this, we take strict measures to ensure that individual patients cannot be identified.

We currently only share information from your records on an individual basis either by letter or courier, but with improvements in information technology and strict information governance standards, it is becoming possible to share your GP records across Coventry & Warwickshire Health & Social Care. We will only allow this to happen with your consent, so that you are able to allow doctors, nurses and other health and social care services to see all the information held on your GP records.

The following are examples of the types of organisations that we are likely to share information with:

NHS and specialist hospitals, Trusts
Independent Contractors such as dentists, opticians, pharmacists
Private and Voluntary Sector Providers
Ambulance Trusts
Clinical Commissioning Groups and NHS England
Social Care Services and Local Authorities
Education Services
Police, Fire and Rescue Services

Any patient can choose to withdraw their consent to their data being used in this way. When the Surgery is about to participate in any new data-sharing scheme we will make patients aware by displaying prominent notices in the Surgery and on our website. These schemes are only for direct care so you (or your carer) will be present when the information is accessed and will be asked for consent again, before your records are opened.

A patient can object to their personal information being shared with other health care providers but if this limits the treatment that you can receive then the doctor will explain this to you at the time.

RISK STRATIFICATION

Risk stratification is a process for identifying and managing patients who are at a higher risk of emergency hospital admission. This may be because patients have a long term condition such as COPD, cancer or are more frail. NHS England encourages GPs to use risk stratification tools as part of their local strategies for supporting patients with long-term conditions and help reduce the patients’ risk of hospital admissions.

Information about you is collected from a number of sources including NHS Trusts and from The Waterside Medical Centre. Your risk is then ‘scored’ after analysis of your anonymous information using computer programmes. Your information is only provided back to your GP or member of your care team in an identifiable form. Risk stratification enables your GP to focus on the prevention of ill health and not just the treatment of sickness.

NATIONAL DATA EXTRACTIONS (Also known as GPES)

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 allows NHS Digital to collate personal confidential data from GP practices without seeking your specific consent. This is extracted in order to make increased use of information from medical records and either used just by the NHS with the intention of improving healthcare and the quality of care delivered to patients or may be sold to external companies such as universities or commercial organisations. Please see below if you do not want your data used in this way.

More information about how NHS Digital uses your data can be found at https://digital.nhs.uk/services/general-practice-extraction-service

WHAT IF I WANT TO SEE MY RECORDS?

You have a right under the Data Protection Act 1998 to access/view information the Surgery holds about you, and to have it amended or removed should it be inaccurate. This is known as ‘the right of subject access’. We are very keen for you to have access to help you manage your own health and maintain the quality of the records about your health. With some provisos, we are now able to give most adults access to their records on-line if they wish. If you would like access on-line, please ask our receptionists.

You can also request a copy of your records in paper form. If you wish to do this, you will 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 will 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

WHAT IF I WANT TO SEE WHO HAS ACCESSED MY RECORDS?

On our computer system called EMIS WEB you can look at your GP Shared Record History to find out when your GP record has been accessed. To do this all you need is the username and password that you use to order prescriptions or make appointments with via our website. (If you have chosen to have sharing functionality disabled this will not be available.) This only covers instances where your record has been accessed outside of The Waterside Medical Centre for direct care purposes, i.e. it does not cover accesses by your own GP, and it does not cover the data that gets copied for research and to NHS Digital.

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 Surgery is registered with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) as a data controller under the Data Protection Act 1998. The registration number is Z4794614 and can be viewed online in the public register at https://ico.org.uk/ESDWebPages/Search

OBJECTIONS/COMPLAINTS

Should you have any concerns about how your information is managed at the Surgery, please contact our Practice Manager. If you are still unhappy following a review by the Surgery, you can then complain to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) via their website (https://ico.org.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 Surgery for any of the purposes described, you need to let us know as soon as possible so please speak to the receptionist.

There are 3 levels of opt-out to prevent your data being shared. Each opt-out requires the practice to add a different code to your medical notes. (Please be aware that certain regulation such as child protection and court orders may over-rule your choices.)

You do not want your data to leave the Surgery even for direct patient care.
You are happy to share your data for your care but do not want NHS Digital extracting your data.
You are happy to share your data for your care and improving public health but do not want NHS Digital selling or sharing your data to third parties.

All patients have the right to change their minds and reverse a previous decision. Please contact the Surgery if you change your mind regarding any previous choice.

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