To provide you with the care you need, we hold the details of your consultations, illness, tests, prescriptions and other treatments that have been recorded by everyone involved in your care and treatment e.g. G.P, Health Visitor, Practice Nurse. This information may be stored on paper or electronically on computer files by practice staff.
We sometimes disclose some of your personal health information with other organisations involved in your care. For example, when your GP refers you to a specialist at the hospital we will send relevant details about you in the referral letter and receive information about you from them.
Our practice also participates in regional and national programmes such as the cervical cytology screening service and your name and address, date of birth and health number will be given to them in order to send an invitation to you.
We need to use some of your personal health information for administrative purposes. In order to receive payment for services provided to you, we have to disclose basic details about you to the NHS Board responsible for this area and to the Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service. These organisations have a role in protecting public funds and are authorised to check that payments are being properly made. We are required to co-operate with these checks and the disclosure of your data is a necessary part of our provision of healthcare services.
Sometimes, we may participate in studies that are designed to improve the way services are provided to you or to check that our performance meets required standards and benchmarks. Whenever we take part in activities such as these we will ensure that as far as possible any details that may identify you are not disclosed.
We are involved in health research and the teaching of student nurses, doctors and other health professionals. We will not use or disclose your personal health information for these purposes unless you have been informed beforehand and given your consent for us to do so.
Where you need a service jointly provided with a local authority we will seek your permission before giving them your details. Sometimes we are required by law to pass on information e.g. the notification of births and deaths and certain diseases or crimes to the government is a legal requirement.
We are currently involved in research studies for which we provide anonymised information from patients’ notes. The risk of you being identified from this information is extremely low as all directly identifiable details (name, address, postcode, NHS number, full date of birth) are removed from your notes before they are collected for research, and automatic programs to de-personalise any free text (non structured or coded data) are run after the information is collected. Individual patients’ records are added into a much larger anonymous database, containing records from millions of patients across the UK. This information is used by researchers outside this practice.
The database to which we contribute anonymised records is known as The Health Improvement Network (THIN). This data may be anonymously linked to other data, such as hospital data. This database is managed by a company outside the NHS which does not have access to your personal details, only to anonymous medical records.
The data are used for research into such topics as drug safety, disease patterns, prescribing patterns, health economics and public health. Many of these studies provide useful information to medical staff on diseases, the use of drugs or outcomes of disease or treatment.
These studies may be performed by academic researchers or commercial companies amongst others. However, no researcher has access to your full details such as your name and address, initials or your full date of birth. The researchers are not given information about the GP nor the practice name, address or postcode.
If you would like to opt-out of this data collection scheme, please let your doctor know and no data from your records will be collected for use in research. This will not affect your care in any way.
If anything to do with the research would require that you provide additional information about yourself, you will be contacted to see if you are willing to take part: You will not be identified in any published results.
A list of published research using the THIN database can be found at http://csdmruk.cegedim.com/THINBibliography.pdf or please contact Michelle Page on telephone number 0207 501 7522 or email michelle.page@thin-uk.com for a paper copy.
Note that you have a right of access to your health records. If at any time you would like to know more or have any concerns about how we use your information, you can speak to the Practice Manager
Please note calls to the Practice are recorded for training and monitoring purposes.
Our use of your personal health information is covered by a duty of confidentiality and is regulated by the Data Protection Act. The Data Protection Act gives you a number of rights in relation to how your personal information is used, including a right to access the information we hold about you.
Everyone working for the NHS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential and adheres to a Code of Practice on Protecting Patient confidentiality. Further information on this can be found at www.nhsis.co.uk/confidentiality. Anyone who receives information from us is also under a legal duty to keep it confidential.
If you have any queries or concerns on how we use your personal health information or would like to access your information, please contact our Practice Manager.