PRIVACY POLICY

Your Information, Your Rights

Being transparent and providing accessible information to patients about how we will use your personal information is a key element of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the EU General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). 

The following notice reminds you of your rights in respect of the above legislation and how your GP Practice will use your information for lawful purposes in order to deliver your care and the effective management of the local NHS system.

This notice reflects how we use information for:

• The management of patient records;
• Communication concerning your clinical, social and supported care;
• Ensuring the quality of your care and the best clinical outcomes are achieved through clinical audit and retrospective review;
• Participation in health and social care research; and
• The management and clinical planning of services to ensure that appropriate care is in place for our patients today and in the future.

Data Controller

As your registered GP practice, we are the data controller for any personal data that we hold about you.

What information do we collect and use?

All personal data must be processed fairly and lawfully, whether is it received directly from you or from a third party in relation to your care.

We will collect the following types of information from you or about you from a third party (provider organisation) engaged in the delivery of your care:

• ‘Personal data’ meaning any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified from the data.  This includes, but is not limited to name, date of birth, full postcode, telephone numbers, address, next of kin and NHS number;

And

• ‘Special category / sensitive data’ such as medical history including details of appointments and contact with you, medication, emergency appointments and admissions, clinical notes, treatments, results of investigations, supportive care arrangements, social care status, race, ethnic origin, genetics and sexual orientation.

Your healthcare records contain information about your health and any treatment or care you have received previously (e.g. from an acute hospital, GP surgery, community care provider, mental health care provider, walk-in centre, social services, local pharmacy).  These records may be electronic, a paper record or a mixture of both.  We use a combination of technologies and working practices to ensure that we keep your information secure and confidential.

Why do we collect this information?

The NHS Act 2006 and the Health and Social Care Act 2012 invests statutory functions on GP Practices to promote and provide the health service in England, improve quality of services, reduce inequalities, conduct research, review performance of services and deliver education and training.  To do this we will need to process your information in accordance with current data protection legislation to:

• Protect your vital interests;
• Pursue our legitimate interests as a provider of medical care, particularly where the individual is a child or a vulnerable adult;
• Perform tasks in the public’s interest;
• Deliver preventative medicine, medical diagnosis, medical research; and
• Manage the health and social care system and services.

How is the information collected?

Your information will be collected either electronically using secure NHS Mail or a secure electronic transferred over an NHS encrypted network connection.  In addition physical information such as letters will be sent to your practice.  This information will be retained within your GP’s electronic patient record or within your physical medical records.

Who will we share your information with?

In order to deliver and coordinate your health and social care, we may share information with the following organisations:

• Local GP Practices in order to deliver extended primary care services
• Primary Care Network that your surgery is affiliated with*
• Northumbria Healthcare Foundation Trust and Newcastle Hospital Trusts, Northumberland and Tyne & Wear Trust, NEAS, Children’s Services (including Health Visiting Services), Screening Services, NHS England, Private Sector Providers (ie private hospital care, care homes, hospices or other contractors providing services to the NHS), Immunisation Services, Public Health (communicable diseases).  
• 111 and Out of Hours Service
• Local Social Services and Community Care services
• Voluntary Support Organisations commissioned to provide services by our Clinical Commissioning Groups in Northumberland and North Tyneside.

Your information will only be shared if it is appropriate for the provision of your care or required to satisfy our statutory function and legal obligations.

Your information will not be transferred outside of the European Union.

Whilst we might share your information with the above organisations, we may also receive information from them to ensure that your medical records are kept up to date and so that your GP can provide the appropriate care.

*Primary Care Network

The objective of primary care networks (PCNs) is to group practices together to create more collaborative workforces which ease the pressure of GP’s, leaving them better able to focus on patient care. Primary Care Networks form a key building block of the NHS long-term plan. Bringing general practices together to work at scale has been a policy priority for some years for a range of reasons, including improving the ability of practices to recruit and retain staff; to manage financial and estates pressures; to provide a wider range of services to patients and to more easily integrate with the wider health and care system. This means the practice may share your information with other practices within the PCN to provide you with your care and treatment, and improve the quality of services provided to our patients.

Summary Care Record

Emergency care information such as your name, date of birth, the name of your GP, any medicines which your GP has prescribed, any medicines you are allergic to or react badly to, is shared with Out of Hours as this might be important if you need urgent medical care when the GP surgery is closed.

NHS staff (Doctors, Nurses, Accident and Emergency, Ambulance control and crews) can look at your SCR if they need to treat you when the surgery is closed. They will ask for your consent before they look at your records.

In an emergency and if you are unconscious, staff may look at your SCR without your agreement to let them give you the best possible care.

Whenever NHS staff looks at your SCR, a record will be kept so we can always check who has looked at your information.  You can opt out of this by letting your GP surgery know.  For more information contact:  https://digital.nhs.uk/services/summary-care-records-scr

Great North Care Record

The Great North Care Record is a new way of sharing medical information across the North East and North Cumbria which is accessed by health and social care practitioners.  It means that key information about your health such as diagnoses, medications, details of hospitals admissions and treatments is shared between different healthcare services including hospitals, out of hours and ambulance services.

If you need treatment at Emergency Department (A&E) or at out-of-hours services, the doctor or nurse may need to know more about you, like what medication you take or whether you have any allergies. They will ask your permission to view your Great North Care Record.  If you choose not to give permission, they will not access your record.  You can opt out of this by letting your GP surgery know.   For more information go to :https://www.greatnorthcarerecord.org.uk

GP Out of Hours Service (Vocare)

This system (Adastra) provides a summary of key information to support patients who have complex care needs or long term conditions.  Some patients may be palliative.   This system allows important information to be shared with health care professionals in unscheduled care situations for example Out of Hours GP Services.    Information contained in this summary includes, future care plans, medications, allergies, diagnosis, your wishes, carer and next of kin details. You have the right to opt out of this by letting your GP surgery know. 

How do we maintain the confidentiality of your records?

We are committed to protecting your privacy and will only use information that has been collected lawfully.  Every member of staff who works for an NHS organisation has a legal obligation to keep information about you confidential.  We maintain our duty of confidentiality by conducting annual training and awareness, ensuring access to personal data is limited to the appropriate staff and information is only shared with organisations and individuals that have a legitimate and legal basis for access.

Information is not held for longer than is necessary.   We will hold your information in accordance with the Records Management Code of Practice for Health and Social Care 2016.

Consent and Objections

Do I need to give my consent?

The GDPR sets a high standard for consent.  Consent means offering people genuine choice and control over how their data is used. When consent is used properly, it helps you build trust and enhance your reputation.  However consent is only one potential lawful basis for processing information.  Therefore your GP practice may not need to seek your explicit consent for every instance of processing and sharing your information, on the condition that the processing is carried out in accordance with this notice.  Your GP Practice will contact you if they are required to share your information for any other purpose which is not mentioned within this notice.  Your consent will be documented within your electronic patient record.

What will happen if I withhold my consent or raise an objection?

You have the right to write to withdraw your consent at any time for any particular instance of processing, provided consent is the legal basis for the processing.  Please contact us for further information and to raise your objection.  Please also read details below regarding National Data Opt-out.

Health Risk Screening / Risk Stratification

Health Risk Screening or Risk Stratification is a process that helps your GP to determine whether you are at risk of an unplanned admission or deterioration in health.  By using selected information such as age, gender, NHS number,diagnosis, existing long term condition(s), medication history, patterns of hospital attendances, admissions and periods of access to community care your GP will be able to judge if you are likely to need more support and care from time to time, or if the right services are in place to support the local population’s needs.

To summarise Risk Stratification is used in the NHS to:

• Help decide if a patient is at a greater risk of suffering from a particular condition;
• Prevent an emergency admission;
• Identify if a patient needs medical help to prevent a health condition from getting worse; and/or
• Review and amend provision of current health and social care services.

Your GP will use computer based algorithms or calculations to identify their registered patients who are at most risk.

For patients registered with North Tyneside or Whitley Bay practices support from the local Commissioning Support Unit (CSU)and/or a third party accredited Risk Stratification provider will be carried out.  The risk stratification contracts are arranged by North Tyneside CCG in accordance with the current Section 251 Agreement. (A Section 251 Agreement is where the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has granted permission for personal data to be used for the purposes of risk stratification, in acknowledgement that it would overburden the NHS to conduct manual reviews of all patient registers held by individual providers.)

For all practices – Neither the CSU nor your local CCG will at any time have access toyour personal or confidential data.  They will only act on behalf of your GP to organise the risk stratification service with appropriate contractual technical and security measures in place.

Your GP will routinely conduct the risk stratification process outside of your GP appointment.  This process is conducted electronically and without human intervention.  The resulting report is then reviewed by a multidisciplinary team of staff within the Practice.  This may result in contact being made with you if alterations to the provision of your care are identified.

As mentioned above, you have the right to object to your information being used in this way.  However you should be aware that your objection may have a negative impact on the timely and proactive provision of your direct care.  Please contact the Practice Manager to discuss how disclosure of your personal data can be limited.

Sharing of Electronic Patient Records within the NHS

Electronic patient records are kept in most places where you receive healthcare.  Our local electronic systems (such as SystmOne, EMIS and Eclipse) enables your record to be shared with organisations involved in your direct care, such as:

• GP practices/Primary Care Networks (out of hour Hubs)
• Community services such as district nurses, rehabilitation services, telehealth and out of hospital services.
• Child health services that undertake routine treatment or health screening  
• Urgent care organisations, minor injury units or out of hours services
• Community hospitals
• Palliative care hospitals
• Care Homes
• Mental Health Trusts
• Hospitals
• Social Care organisations
• Pharmacies
• CCG Lead for Safeguarding Children and adults

In addition, NHS England have implemented the Summary Care Record which contains information including medication you are taking and any bad reactions to medication that you have had in the past.

In most cases, particularly for patients with complex conditions and care arrangements, the shared electronic health record plays a vital role in delivering the best care and a coordinated response, taking into account all aspects of a person’s physical and mental health.  Many patients are understandably not able to provide a full account of their care, or may not be in a position to do so.  The shared record means patients do not have to repeat their medical history at every care setting.

Your record will be automatically setup to be shared with the organisations listed above, however you have the right to ask your GP to disable this function or restrict access to specific elements of your record.  This will mean that the information recorded by your GP will not be visible at any other care setting. 

You can also reinstate your consent at any time by giving your permission to override your previous dissent. 

Invoice Validation

If you have received treatment within the NHS, the local Commissioning Support Unit (CSU) may require access to your personal information to determine which Clinical Commissioning Group is responsible for payment for the treatment or procedures you have received.  Information such as your name, address, date of treatment and associated treatment code may be passed onto the CSU to enable them to process the bill.  These details are held in a secure environment and kept confidential.  This information is only used to validate invoices in accordance with the current Section 251 Agreement, and will not be shared for any further commissioning purposes.

Your Right of Access to Your Records

The Data Protection Act and General Data Protection Regulations allows you to find out what information is held about you including information held within your medical records, either in electronic or physical format.  This is known as the “right of subject access”.  If you would like to have access to all or part of your records, you can make a request in writing to the organisation that you believe holds your information.  This can be your GP, or a provider that is or has delivered your treatment and care.  You should however be aware that some details within your health records may be exempt from disclosure, however this will be in the interests of your wellbeing or to protect the identity of a third party.  If you would like access to your GP record please submit your request in writing to the practices you are registered with.  Addresses Below.

National Data opt-out

Patients who can choose to set a national data opt-out –Anyone who has an NHS number and has registered for care or treatment with the NHS in England can set an opt out if they wish to, even if they don’t currently live in England.

Patients who can set an opt-out choice for themselves –If a patient is aged 13 or over, they can set their own opt-out choice using the online service, the telephone service, the NHS App, or ‘print-and-post’, completing a form by hand and sending it in.

Patients who can set an opt-out choice on behalf of someone else.  Someone can set an opt-out choice on behalf of a patient, by proxy, if:

• they are the parent or legal guardian of the patient, who is a child aged 12 or under
• they have a formal legal relationship with the patient, for example they have legal power of attorney or are a court-appointed deputy

They can only do this using the ‘print and post’ service.

Changing an opt-out choice –An opt-out choice can be changed at any time by the patient or their proxy.

Using the online service –Patients can set their own opt-out choice by visiting www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters using any internet enabled device. So that the service can confirm their identity, they will need to provide:

• their NHS number, or their postcode (as registered with their GP practice)
• their mobile phone number or email address provided previously at a GP practice or other NHS service

The online service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Using the NHS App – Patients who have registered for the NHS App using NHS login can set a national data opt-out using the app.

Using the telephone service –Patients can set their own opt-out choice by calling 0300 303 5678.Calling this number should cost no more than calls to a normal landline number.The telephone service is available 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, apart from on English bank or public holidays.

Using ‘print-and-post’ –If a patient is unable to use the online or telephone service, or would prefer not to, they can compete a paper form and post it.

The form can be downloaded from www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters or requested by calling the telephone service on 0300 303 5678.  

Patients in prison or secure settings – There are special arrangements for patients in prison or other similar secure settings, known as detained and secure estates. A health and care professional can help register a patient’s opt-out choice. See Guidance for detained and secure estates.

Confirmation –During the process of setting their opt-out choice, the patient can choose their preferred communication method:

• email
• SMS text
• letter

Once the process has been completed, the patient will receive a confirmation that their national data opt-out choice has been set.

Complaints

In the event that your feel your GP Practice has not complied with the current data protection legislation, either in responding to your request or in our general processing of your personal information, you should raise your concerns in the first instance in writing to the Practice Manager at the practice you are registered with.

If you remain dissatisfied with our response you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wimslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF – Enquiry Line: 01625 545700 or online at www.ico.gov.uk

Practice Contact Details