Introduction
This leaflet explains who we are, why information is collected about you, the ways in which this information may be used, who it is shared with and how we keep it safe. It also explains how the practice uses the information we hold about you, how you go about accessing this information if you wish to see it and to have any inaccuracies corrected or erased.
Who we are
Testvale Surgery is a well-established GP surgery based in Totton on the outskirts of Hampshire. Our staff of General Practitioners and Nurses provides primary medical care services to our practice population of 13150 patients and our administrative and managerial staff support the team in providing care for patients.
WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT FROM YOU?
GP Records are stored electronically and on paper and include personal details about you such as your address, carers, legal representatives, emergency contact details, as well as:
- Any contact the surgery has had with you, such as appointments, clinic visits, emergency appointments and telephone calls
- Notes and reports about your health
- Details about your treatment and care
- Details about any medication you are taking
- Results of investigations such as laboratory tests, x-rays
- Relevant information from other health professionals, relatives or those who care for you
WHY DO WE COLLECT THIS INFORMATION?
Your records are used to ensure you receive the best possible care from our nurses and doctors. It enables the staff to see previous treatments, medications and enables them to make informed decisions about future decisions about your care. It helps the doctors to see lists of previous treatments and any special considerations which need to be taken into account when care is provided.
Important information is also collected to help us to remind you about specific treatment which you might need, such as health checks, or reminders for screening appointments such as cytology reminders.
Information held about you may be used to help protect the health of the public and to help us to improve NHS services. Information may be used within the GP practice for clinical audit to monitor the quality of the service provided.
Staff at the practice use your information to help deliver more effective treatment to you and to help us to provide you with proactive advice and guidance.
Who MIGHT WE share your information with?
There are a number of ways information collected about you is shared, which includes:
- Patient referrals
With your agreement, your GP or Nurse may refer you to other services and healthcare providers not provided by the practice, or they may work with other services to provide your care in the practice. Once you have been seen for your referral, the other health care provider will normally tell us about the treatment they have provided for you and any follow up which the GPs need to provide. This information is then included in your GP record.
- Local Hospital, Community or Social Care Services
Sometimes the clinicians caring for you need to share some of your information with others who are also supporting you. This could include hospital or community based specialists, nurses, health visitors, therapists or social care services.
- Summary Care Record (SCR)
A Summary Care Record is an electronic record of important patient information, created from the GP medical records. It contains information about medication you are taking, any allergies you suffer from and any bad reactions to medications you have previously had. It can be seen and used by authorised staff in other areas of the health and care system involved in your direct care. Giving healthcare staff access to this information can prevent mistakes being made when caring for you in an emergency or when your GP practice is closed. Your Summary Care Record also includes your name, address, date of birth and your unique NHS Number to help identify you correctly. If you and your GP decide to include more information it can be added to the Summary Care Record, but only with your express permission. For more information visit https://digital.nhs.uk/summary-care-records/patients
- Care and Health Information Exchange (CHIE)
The CHIE is an electronic summary record for people living in Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton. GP Surgeries, hospitals, social care and community care teams collect information about you and store it electronically on separate computer systems. The Care and Health Information Exchange stores summary information from these organisations in one place so that – with your consent – professionals can view it to deliver better care to you. This record contains more information than the SCR, but is only available to organisations in Hampshire. For more information Visit https://careandhealthinformationexchange.org.uk/
- National Services
There are some national services like the National Cancer Screening Programme that collect and keep information from across the NHS. This is how the NHS knows when to contact you about services like cervical, breast or bowel cancer screening. Often you have the right to not allow these organisations to have your information.
You can find out more about how the NHS holds and shares your information for national programmes on the NHS Choices website. https://www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/about-the-nhs/your-choices-in-the-nhs/
- Other NHS organisations
Sometimes the practice shares information with other organisations that do not directly treat you, for example, Clinical Commissioning Groups. Normally, it will not be possible to identify you from this information. This information is used to plan and improve services. The information collected includes data such as the area patients live, age, gender, ethnicity, language preference, country of birth and religion. The CCG also collects information about whether patients have long term conditions such as diabetes; blood pressure, cholesterol levels and medication. However, this information is anonymous and does not include anything written as notes by the GP and cannot be linked to you.
- Telephone Calls
All our incoming telephone calls are recorded for training and monitoring purposes for a period of 6 months. These are held on a secure, password encrypted hard drive and are deleted at the end of the retention period.
- General Practice Data for Planning and Research
| General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR) | Purpose: Patients personal confidential data will be extracted and shared with NHS Digital in order to support vital health and care planning and research. Further information can be found here
Patients may opt out of having their information shared for Planning or Research by applying a National Data Opt Out Details of how to Opt Out can be found on our Privacy Notice. For the National Data Opt Out patients are required to register their preference below. https://www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters/
For Type 1 Opt Out they can complete the form and return it to their registered practice for action by the 23rd June 2021. https://nhs-prod.global.ssl.fastly.net/binaries/content/assets/website-assets/data-and-information/data-collections/general-practice-data-for-planning-and-research/type-1-opt-out-form.docx
Legal Basis : The legal basis for this activity can be found at this link : General Practice Data for Planning and Research: NHS Digital Transparency Notice – NHS Digital
Processor: NHS Digital |
- Local Data Sharing Agreements
The practice currently has three data sharing agreements which are in place:
- Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, our community services provider;
This agreement allows the Integrated Care Teams (community nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists) being able to access GP information about people on their caseload who have recently been discharged from hospital or who are housebound, or who require longer term rehabilitation from the GP record. This information can be read by the healthcare professional to improve the patients care, but they are not able to amend the GP medical record.
- Totton Primary Care Network
An agreement has been developed between Testvale Surgery and New Horizons Medical Partnership (Totton Health Centre and Forestgate Surgery) to allow sharing patient information for our social prescriber and clinical pharmacist which will be shared between the organisations. This will also make it easier for patients to be seen at any GP practice in Totton should it be necessary, for example, during extended hours periods.
- Southern Health Foundation Trust – Frailty Support Team
The SHFT Frailty Team have access to the patient records at the practice to enable them to review the clinical information to provide support to appropriate patients. They will also maintain a record within the SHFT clinical record. The legal basis for this sharing falls under 6.1.e – under authority of a contract to deliver NHS services and 9.2.h – delivery and management of direct health care. Common Law Duty of Confidence – explicit consent
- Other local agreements
Testvale Surgery has an agreement to allow the medicines management team at West Hampshire CCG to access the clinical system to view prescribing data for the practice and to undertake medication reviews on specific patients. The medicines optimisation team also undertakes prescribing audit on behalf of the practice. This information is used to help improve quality, safety and cost effectiveness of prescribing.
Testvale Surgery has agreed a memorandum of understanding with West Hampshire CCG in regard to the Referral Support Service. This service assists the practice in improving the quality and accuracy of referrals made by our clinical team. All referrals (excluding urgent cancer referrals) are made through the service, which co-ordinates the most appropriate clinic for the patient to be seen in to enable the patient to be seen in the right place, first time. Additionally feedback is provided to the referring clinician where required to help improvements in future referrals.
Solent Mind. All patients with Serious Mental Illness are required to have a physical health check each year, this ensures their general health is managed which otherwise could deteriorate as a result of their mental illness. Solent Mind carry out some of the health checks on behalf of our practice. Legal basis – 6.1.e under the NHS Contract. Lawful basis – 9.2.h to manage patient health care.
What do we do with your information?
The healthcare professionals who provide your care maintain records about your health. This is a record of your care history and allows health care professionals to review your care to help inform future decisions about your treatment. Sharing this information helps to improve the treatment you receive, such as a hospital consultant writing to your GP. We follow strict data sharing guidelines to keep your information safe and secure.
HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION?
Health and social care records are subject to a nationally agreed code of practice which regulates the minimum period for which records must be kept. This specifies that GP record should be retained until 10 years after the patient’s death or after the patient has permanently left the country, unless they remain in the European Union. Electronic patient records must not be destroyed or deleted for the foreseeable future. For more information, see the records management code of practice: https://www.nhsx.nhs.uk/information-governance/guidance/records-management-code/
How do we keep your information safe?
Every member of staff who works for an NHS organisation has a legal obligation to keep information about you confidential. We are committed to protecting your privacy and will only use information collected lawfully in accordance with:
- UK General Data Protection Regulation 2018
- Data Protection Act 2018
- Human Rights Act 1998
- Common Law Duty of Confidentiality
- Health and Social Care Act 2012
- NHS Codes of Confidentiality, Information Security and Records Management
- Information: To Share or Not to Share Review
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 such as a life or death situation, or where the law requires information to be passed, or where it is in the best interest of the patient to share the information.
YOUR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
The practice does not engage in any direct marketing, profiling or use any automated decision making tools.
- HOW CAN I ACCESS THE INFORMATION YOU HOLD ABOUT ME?
You have a right under the Data Protection legislation to request access to obtain copies of all the information the surgery holds about you. You are also allowed to have information amended should it be inaccurate.
In order to access your medical record, you need to let the practice know by making a Subject Access Request (SAR).
The practice will respond to your request within one month of receipt of your request. 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.
It will be very helpful to the practice if you could specify any particular information you need so we can provide the information to you as soon as possible. We have designed a form for patients to help them to identify the information they require and completing this form will help us process this information efficiently.
Usually there is no charge to see the information that the practice holds about you unless the request is excessive or complicated.
For information about your hospital medical records, you should write direct to them.
- HAVE INACCURACIES CORRECTED OR ERASED
If you feel that the personal data that the practice holds about you is inaccurate or incomplete then please let us know and we will update your records within one month of notification. If this incorrect information has been sent onwards, we will also inform any other organisations of this. If it is not possible to correct the information then we will write to you to let you know the reason behind the decision and inform you how you can complain about this.
If you feel information in your health record should not be there, you can ask the practice to erasure that information. We will look at each request specifically. Please bear in mind there may well be legal reasons why we will need to keep data even if you request it to be erased. We will explain this to you in detail in our response.
- DATA PORTABILITY
You have the right to access your data in a format which allows you to re-use and share it with other organisations should you wish. As such, we will provide your data in a structured, commonly used and machine readable form.
- RIGHT TO OBJECT
As a patient, you have the right to object to personal data about you being used or shared.
You also have the right to restrict the use of data the practice holds about you. If you do wish to object, please contact the practice. This will prevent your confidential information being used other than where necessary by law.
If you are a carer and have a Lasting Power of Attorney for health and welfare then you can also object to personal data being used or shared on behalf of the patient who lacks capacity.
If you do not hold a Lasting Power of Attorney then you can raise your specific concerns with the patient’s GP. If you have parental responsibility and your child is not able to make an informed decision for themselves, then you can make a decision about information sharing on behalf of your child. If your child is competent then this must be their decision.
Do I need to do anything?
Note your decisions on the enclosed form and return to Reception. You can change your mind at any time, just complete another form.
- National Data Opt Out
The national data opt-out is a new service that allows patients to choose whether or not to allow their confidential patient information being used for research and planning.
If you don’t want your confidential patient information to be used for research and planning, you can opt out of this. If you do opt out, there are some specific situations where your data may still be used. Data that does not identify you may still also be used.
Your confidential patient information will still be used to support your individual care. Any preference you set using this service will not change this.
If you opt out, your decision will only apply within the health and care system in England. Your opt-out will not apply to your health data where you have accessed health or care services outside of England, such as in Scotland and Wales.
You can manage your choice by using the online service at the following address https://www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters/ or you can or request a print-and-post form to make or change your choice at any time.
A useful video outlining the National Data Opt Out Programme can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BwUsKDqPQ8&feature=youtu.be
Objections / Complaints
Should you have any concerns about how your information is managed at the practice, please contact Chris Gwyther, Practice Manager. The practice will listen to your concerns and try and act upon the concerns raised as best we are able. 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
Changes to Privacy Policy
We keep our privacy policy under regular review and we will place any updates on this web page. This privacy policy was last updated in February 2023.