Use of personal health information
Confidentiality
All information concerning patients is strictly confidential. To provide you with the care you need, we hold details of your consultations, illnesses, tests, prescriptions and other treatments that have been recorded by everyone involved in your care e.g. Practice Nurses, Community Nurses and Health Visitors. This information is stored both on paper and electronically. The practice is registered under the Data Protection Act for this purpose to protect the right of the individual to privacy with respect to the processing of personal data. You are entitled to see your medical records on written request and you may take copies of what you require. There is a charge for copies requested. Further details regarding charges are available on request. There are some restrictions on your rights defined by law. The Doctors would be prepared to discuss your records with you to clarify issues and avoid misunderstanding.
Use and Protection of Patient Information
We ask you for information about yourself so that you can receive proper care and treatment. We keep this information, together with details of your care, because it may be needed if we see you again. We may use some of this information for other purposes; for example, to help us protect the health of the public generally and to see that the NHS runs efficiently (planning for the future, training staff, paying bills and accounting for what we do). Information may also be needed to help educate tomorrow’s clinical staff and to carry out medical and other health research for the benefit of everyone. Sometimes the law requires us to pass on information, for example to notify a birth. Everyone working for the NHS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential. We only ever use or pass on information about you if people have a genuine need for it in your and everyone’s interest. Whenever we can we will remove details which identify you. The sharing of some types of very sensitive personal information is strictly controlled by law.
Anyone who receives information from us is also under a legal obligation to keep it confidential.
You have a right to know who holds personal information about you. This person or organisation is called the Data Controller. In the NHS, the Data Controller is usually your local NHS Health Authority and/or your GP Surgery. The NHS must keep your personal health information confidential. It is your right.
Please be aware that our staff are bound to the NHS code of confidentiality; they are therefore not permitted to discuss any of our patient’s medical history, including their registration status, without their written consent to do so.
Once written consent has been received and verified with the patient we can provide you with information as required; this includes communicating with you on behalf of the patient with regards to any complaints, but excludes patients who are unable to act on their own behalf and already have a designated person or carer responsible for their medical care.
We therefore respectfully ask parents, relatives and guardians not to request information regarding their relatives/friends or to complain on their behalf unless we have their written consent that you may do so. If consent is required we advise that the person concerned attends the Practice to complete the required form.