The practice complies with the Data Protection Act. All information about patients is confidential: from the most sensitive diagnosis, to the fact of having visited the surgery or being registered at the Practice. All patients can expect that their personal information will not be disclosed without their permission except in the most exceptional of circumstances, when somebody is at grave risk of serious harm.
All members of the primary health care team (from reception to doctors) in the course of their duties will have access to your medical records. They all adhere to the highest standards of maintaining confidentiality.
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.
Our strict rules about confidentiality mean that we will not discuss your medical affairs even with your close family unless you give us permission to do so. This includes details of appointments you have made. If you would like your partner, parent, son/daughter or carer to be able to speak to us on your behalf, you must tell us beforehand. Please ask our Reception Team for a consent form if you require an ongoing arrangement for sharing consent. You can withdraw your consent at any time.
Under 16s:
The duty of confidentiality owed to a person under 16 is as great as the duty owed to any other person. Young people aged under 16 years can choose to see health professionals, without informing their parents or carers. If a GP considers that the young person is competent to make decisions about their health, then the GP can give advice, prescribe and treat the young person without seeking further consent.
However, in terms of good practice, health professionals will encourage young people to discuss issues with a parent or carer. As with older people, sometimes the law requires us to report information to appropriate authorities in order to protect young people or members of the public.
How your Data is Used:
Information about your health and care helps the NHS to improve your individual care, speed up diagnosis, plan your local services and research new treatments.
You have the right to control how medical information about you is shared, disseminated or sold, for purposes other than your direct medical care – so called secondary uses (or purposes).
Secondary uses include projects involved in risk stratification, population health management, national clinical audits, research, healthcare planning, commissioning of healthcare services by ICS’s, commercial and even political uses. You can control your personal confidential information by opting out of data sharing.
There are 2 types of data sharing.
Type 1 Opt Out
- What is it?
A type 1 opt out prevents information being shared outside a GP practice for purposes other than direct care.
- Who do you notify of your decision to opt out
Please print and sign an opt put form and either bring the original to the practice for processing or take a photo of it and upload via our online triage access here so that we can update your data sharing preferences.
Type 2 Opt Out – now known as National Data Opt-out
- What is it?
A type 2 opt out/National Data Opt-out prevents information being shared outside NHS Digital for purposes beyond the individual’s direct care. The following link will take you to full current information regarding these opt-outs https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-collections-and-data-sets/data-collections/general-practice-data-for-planning-and-research/advice-for-the-public
- Who do you notify of your decision to opt out
Type 2 Opt outs are arranged by NHS Digital. If you are aged 13 or older you can go to Make your choice about sharing data from your health records – NHS (www.nhs.uk) and opt out online.
Other ways to make a choice.
You can also make or change a choice for:
- yourself by phone, email or post
- someone else by email or post
NHS Digital Contact Centre phone number: 0300 303 5678 – Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm (excluding bank holidays).
If you’re a parent or legal guardian and you want to opt your children out, you must complete the opt-out form.
Once you’ve completed the form, you can email it to the Contact Centre – [email protected]
Alternatively, you can post the form to:
National Data Opt Out
Contact Centre
NHS Digital
HM Government
7 and 8 Wellington Place
Leeds
LS1 4AP
What is Stockport Medical Group doing to inform patients of this change?
To make sure that as many patients as possible know about the scheme and have the opportunity to make a choice, Stockport Medical Group are taking the following steps:
- All staff fully aware to support you with any queries you may have
- Information available in the practice
- Information on social media
- Information on website and links above to NHS websites for further information
Summary Care Record (SCR)
Your Summary Care Record is different to the above sharing for secondary uses. Your SCR is used to assist in provision of care for you. Access to SCR information means that care in other settings is safer, reducing the risk of prescribing errors. It also helps avoid delays to urgent care.
At a minimum, the SCR holds important information about;
- current medication
- allergies and details of any previous bad reactions to medicines
- the name, address, date of birth and NHS number of the patient
Additional Information in the SCR, such as details of long-term conditions, significant medical history, or specific communications needs, is now included by default for patients with an SCR, unless they have previously told the NHS that they did not want this information to be shared. There will also be a temporary change to include COVID-19 specific codes in relation to suspected, confirmed, Shielded Patient List and other COVID-19 related information within the Additional Information.
All of our patients who have not chosen to opt out have a Summary Care Record that can be accessed, with the patient’s consent, by hospital and out of hours staff.
You may choose to opt out of having a Summary Care Record. The websites below will help you to decide on the risks and benefits.
If you would like to opt out, please print off and complete the following consent form and return it to the surgery.
https://digital.nhs.uk/services/summary-care-records-scr/scr-patient-consent-preference-form
National Diabetes Audit (NDA)
Stockport Medical Group is taking part in an important national project about people at risk of diabetes and diabetes care and treatment in the NHS. The project is called the National Diabetes Audit (NDA). The NDA has always collected patient identifiable data from health care providers since it began in 2004.
Patients do not need to be individually consented but we want to raise awareness of the NDA.This is known as ‘fair processing’.
If you have diabetes, non-diabetic hyperglycaemia, impaired glucose tolerance or pre-diabetes, your GP practice will share information about your diabetes care and treatment with the NDA. The type of information, and how it is shared, is controlled by law and enforced by strict rules of confidentiality and security.
Taking part in the NDA shows that this GP practice is committed to reducing diabetes and improving care for people with diabetes.
The NDA is a mandatory collection for the NHS. NHS England uses powers under section 254 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to direct NHS Digital to collect the data. The information is required by NHS Digital under section 259 of the 2012 Act to comply with the National Diabetes Audit Directions 2017.
In line with section 259, all organisations in England that are in scope of the NDA Data Provision Notice, must comply with the requirement and provide information to NHS Digital in the form, manner and period specified.
Where a collection is directed under this mechanism, the national data opt out does not apply. Therefore, all patients’ records must be submitted to NHS Digital.
This is detailed in section 6.4 ‘When does a national data opt-out not apply?’ of the National data opt-out operational policy guidance document.
NHS Digital is obliged to apply the national data opt out if they supply the data onwards to any other organisation. For example, if a research body applies for NDA data via the Data Access Request Service (DARS) run by NHS Digital, then they are required to apply the NDO preference from the patient to the data before supplying the data extract to the research body. They do this by checking the patient cohort against the national register.