Privacy Notice - Children

Reviewed: Nov 2023

This privacy notice explains why Bitterne Surgery collects information about you, how we keep it safe and confidential and how that information may be used.

Why We Collect Information About You

Health care professionals who provide you with care are required by law to maintain records about your health and any treatment or care you have received within any NHS organisation. These records help to provide you with the best possible healthcare.

We collect and hold data for the sole purpose of providing healthcare services to our patients. In carrying out this role we may collect information about you which helps us respond to your queries or secure specialist services. We may keep your information in written form and/or in digital form. The records may include basic details about you, such as your name and address. They may also contain more sensitive information about your health and information such as outcomes of needs assessments.

Details We Collect About You

The health care professionals who provide you with care maintain records about your health and any treatment or care you have received previously or elsewhere (e.g. NHS Hospital Trust, other GP Surgery, Out of Hours GP Centre, A&E, Walk-in clinic, etc.). These records help to provide you with the best possible healthcare.

Records which we may hold about you may include the following:

Details about you, such as your address and next of kin, emergency contacts
Your home telephone number, mobile phone number, email address
Any contact the surgery has had with you, such as appointments, clinic visits, immunisations, emergency appointments,etc.
Notes and reports about your health, treatment and care
Results of investigations, such as laboratory tests, x-rays,etc.
Relevant information from other health professionals, relatives or those who care for you

How We Keep Your Information Confidential And Safe

All your GP NHS health records are kept electronically. Our GP records database is hosted by EMIS Web, who are acting as data processors, and all information is stored on their secure servers in Leeds and is protected by appropriate security, and access is restricted to authorised personnel.

We also make sure that data processors that support us are legally and contractually bound to operate and prove security arrangements are in place where data that could or does identify a person are processed.

We maintain our duty of confidentiality to you always. 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 (i.e. life or death situations), or where the law requires information to be passed on.

How We Use Information About You

Confidential patient data will be shared within the healthcare team at the practice, including nursing staff, admin staff, secretaries and receptionists, and with other healthcare professionals to whom a patient is referred. Those individuals have a professional and contractual duty of confidentiality.

Details of who is authorised to access your GP record can be found on our website, or please ask at reception.

Data Processors

Bitterne Surgery uses data processors to perform certain administrative tasks for us, particularly where these involve large numbers of patients. Details of these data processors can be found on our website or please ask at reception.

Referrals For Specific Health Purposes

We sometimes provide your information to other organisations for them to provide you with medical services. We will always inform you of such a referral and you always have the right not to be referred in this way.

Risk Stratification

Risk stratification is a process for identifying and managing patients who are at a higher risk of emergency hospital admission. Typically this is because patients have a long term condition such as Diabetes, COPD or cancer. NHS England encourages GPs to use risk stratification tools as part of their local strategies for supporting patients with long-term conditions and to help prevent avoidable admissions into hospital. Information about you is collected from a number of sources including NHS Trusts and from this GP Practice. A risk score is then arrived at through an analysis of your anonymous information using computer programmes. Your information is only provided back to your GP or member of your care team in an identifiable form. Risk stratification enables your GP to focus on the prevention of ill health and not just the treatment of sickness. If necessary your GP may be able to offer you additional services.

Please note that you have the right to opt out of Risk Stratification.

Should you have any concerns about how your information is managed, or wish to opt out of any data collection at the Practice, please contact the reception team or your healthcare professional to discuss how the disclosure of your personal information can be restricted. All patients have the right to change their minds and reverse a previous decision. Please contact the practice if you change your mind regarding any previous choice.

NHS Health Checks

All of our patients aged 40-74 not previously diagnosed with cardiovascular disease are eligible to be invited for an NHS Health Check. Nobody outside the healthcare team in the practice will see confidential information about you during the invitation process and only contact details would be securely transferred to a data processor (if that method was employed). You may be ‘given the chance to attend your health check either within the practice or at a community venue. If your health check is at a community venue all data collected will be securely transferred back into the practice system and nobody outside the healthcare team in the practice will see confidential information about you during this process.

Prescriptions

Medications/Precribing

Purpose : Prescriptions containing personal identifiable and health data will be shared with chemists/pharmacies, in order to provide patients with essential medication or treatment as their health needs dictate. This process is achieved either by face to face contact with the patient or electronically.Where patients have specified a nominated pharmacy they may wish their repeat or acute prescriptions to be ordered and sent directly to the pharmacy making a more efficient process. Arrangements can also be made with the pharmacy to deliver medication

Legal Basis : Article 6(1)(e); “necessary… in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller’ And Article 9(2)(h) as stated below

Patients will be required to nominate a preferred pharmacy.

Processor – Pharmacy of choice

Who are our Partner Organisers?

We may also have to share your information, subject to strict agreements on how it will be used. The following are examples of the types of organisations that we are likely to share information with:

NHS and specialist hospitals, Trusts
Independent Contractors such as dentists, opticians, pharmacists
Private and Voluntary Sector Providers
Ambulance Trusts
Clinical Commissioning Groups and NHS England
Social Care Services and Local Authorities
Education Services
Police, Fire and Rescue Services
Other ‘data processors’ during specific project work e.g. Diabetes UK

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 http://chie.org.uk/

Mandatory Disclosure Of Information

We are sometimes legally obliged to disclose information about patients to relevant authorities. In these circumstances the minimum identifiable information that is essential to serve that legal purpose will be disclosed.

That organisation will also have a professional and contractual duty of confidentiality. Data will be anonymised if at all possible before disclosure if this would serve the purpose for which the data is required.

Organisations that we are sometimes obliged to release information to include:

NHS Digital (e.g. the National Diabetes Audit)
CQC
DVLA
GMC
HMRC
NHS Counter Fraud
Police
The Courts
Public Health England
Local Authorities (Social Services)
The Health Service Ombudsman

Permissive Disclosure Of Information

Only with your explicit consent can Bitterne Surgery release information about you, from your GP record, to relevant organisations. These may include:

Your employer
Insurance companies
Solicitors
Local Authorities
Police

Accessing Your Information On Other Databases

Bitterne Surgery can access certain medical information about you, when relevant or necessary, that is held on other databases (i.e. under the control of another data controller). These include Southampton General Hospital databases and NHS Digital’s Open Exeter database. Accessing such information would only be for your direct medical care.

Research

Bitterne Surgery does not currently engage in research projects, however if in the future it did, they would only be with accredited research projects. Where this involves accessing identifiable patient information, we will only do so with the explicit consent of the individual and Research Ethics Committee approval.

Your Right To Opt-Out Of Sharing Your Information

You have the right to opt-out (or object) to ways in which your information is shared, both for direct medical care purposes (such as the national NHS data sharing schemes), i.e. primary uses of your information, or for purposes other than your direct medical care – so-called secondary uses. Details of these purposes and how you can opt out, can be found on our website or ask at reception.

Access to Personal Information

You have a right under the General Data Protection Regulations and the Data protection Act to access/view information the Practice holds about you, and to have it amended or removed should it be inaccurate. This is known as ‘the right of subject access’. If we do hold information about you we will:

Give you a description of it;
Tell you why we are holding it;
Tell you who it could be disclosed to; and let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.

Notification

The Data Protection Act requires organisations to register a notification with the Information Commissioner to describe the purposes for which they process personal and sensitive information.

We are registered as a data controller and our registration can be viewed online in the public register at: http://ico.org.uk/what_we_cover/register_of_data_controllers

Complaints

If you have concerns or are unhappy about any of our services, please contact the Practice Manager in the first instance. Details of how to complain are on our website, or available in practice.

For independent advice about data protection, privacy, and data sharing issues, you can contact:

The Information Commissioner

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

Website: https://ico.org.uk/

Further Information

If you would like any further information about primary or secondary uses of your GP record, opting out, the NHS Databases, access to your medical record, confidentiality, or about any other aspect of NHS data sharing or your medical records, then please do contact the surgery’s Caldicott Guardian

Dr A S Benning hiowicb-hsi.westendroadsurgery@nhs.net