The Data Protection Act 2018 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 the data controller and our registration can be viewed online in the public register at: Register of fee payers.
Any changes to this notice will be published on our website and in a prominent area at the Practice.
You can download or view our Patient information leaflet about GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
You can download/view our Children’s Privacy Policy information leaflet shown below;
The health and social care system is facing significant pressures due to the coronavirus outbreak. Health and care information is essential to deliver care to individuals, to support health and social care services and to protect public health. Information will also be vital in researching, monitoring, tracking and managing the outbreak. In the current emergency, it has become even more important to share health and care information across relevant organisations.
This notice describes how GPs and other health and social care organisations may use your information within the health and social care system to protect you and others during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak with regard to your Summary Care Record.
We are committed to maintaining confidentiality and protecting the information we hold about you. We adhere to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the NHS Codes of Confidentiality and Security, as well as guidance issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). You have a right to access the information we hold about you, and if you would like to access this information, you will need to write to the practice requesting the information. Furthermore, should you identify any inaccuracies; you have a right to have the inaccurate data corrected.
Anyone who receives information from us also has a legal duty to keep it confidential and secure.
All staff in the Practice sign a Confidentiality Agreement that explicitly makes clear their duties in relation to personal health information and the consequences of breaching that duty.
Please be aware that your information will be accessed by non-clinical Practice staff in order to perform tasks enabling the functioning of the Practice. These include, but not limited to:
Everyone working for our organisation is subject to the Common Law Duty of Confidence. Information provided in confidence will only be used for specific purposes in accordance with the law. The NHS Digital Code of Practice on Confidential Information applies to all NHS staff and they are required to protect your information, inform you of how your information will be used, and allow you to decide if and how your information can be shared. All our staff are expected to make sure information is kept confidential and receive regular training on how to do this.
The health records we use may be electronic, on paper or a mixture of both, and we use a combination of working practices and technology to ensure that your information is kept confidential and secure. Your records are backed up securely in line with NHS standard procedures. We ensure that the information we hold is kept in secure locations, is protected by appropriate security and access is restricted to authorised personnel. We also make sure external 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 are committed to protecting your privacy and will only use information collected lawfully in accordance with:
We have a senior person responsible for protecting the confidentiality of patient information and enabling appropriate information sharing. This person is called the Caldicott Guardian.
We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a data controller which describes the purposes for which we process personal data. A copy of the registration is available from the ICO’s web site by searching on our name.
We maintain our duty of confidentiality to you at all times. We will only ever use or pass on information about you if we reasonably believe that 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 risk of serious harm to yourself or others) or where the law requires information to be passed on.
This Practice follows the NHS Complaints Procedure when dealing with complaints. If you have a complaint about any of the services we provide we would encourage you to speak to Liz Everett our Practice Manager who will follow up any matters of concern in the appropriate manner. If you wish to write in your concerns , a complaints form is available at reception with a copy of our current complaint procedure.
We make every effort to give the best service possible to everyone who attends our Practice.
However, we are aware that things can go wrong, resulting in a patient feeling that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, we would like the matter to be settled as quickly, and as amicably, as possible.
To have your complaint investigated, you need to complain within 12 months of the event happening, or as soon as you first become aware of the issue you want to complain about.
The time limit can be extended in special circumstances.
A copy of our complaint form is available here
We can arrange for a meeting with the Practice Manager and an Interpreter for any patient whose first language is not English and needs help with their complaint.
Whether you are happy or unhappy with the care and treatment that you have received, please get in touch and let us know your views.
Receiving compliments and complaints is important to ensuring good quality local healthcare in our Practice – helping us to find out more about what we’re getting right and what we can improve.
We hope this will help you to make your feelings and experiences known to the appropriate people. Should you have a complaint we hope this page will give you more information about what to do, who to contact and what happens next.
You can speak to any member of staff initially with your complaint. This gives you the opportunity to resolve any concern you may have without it going through a formal process.
Most complaints are best resolved within the practice and these should be made via the Practice Manager.
We will contact you about your complaint within three working days and offer to discuss with you the best way to investigate it, including the time scales for a reply. We will aim to offer you an explanation within that time frame. Or a meeting with the people involved.
If you feel you do not want to contact the surgery directly, then you can contact the NHS Complaints team on:
NHS England
PO Box 16738
Redditch
B97 9PT
If you are making a complaint please state: ‘For the attention of the complaints team’ in the subject line.
If you have a complaint to make, you can either contact the Practice Manager or ask the Receptionist for a copy of our Complaints Procedure. We will endeavour to:
If a patient lacks capacity to make decisions, their representative must be able to demonstrate sufficient interest in the patient’s welfare and be an appropriate person to act on their behalf. This could be a partner, relative or someone appointed under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 with lasting power of attorney.
In certain circumstances, we need to check that a representative is the appropriate person to make a complaint.
If we are not satisfied that the representative is an appropriate person we will not consider the complaint, and will give the representative the reasons for our decision in writing.
A complaint must be made within 12 months, either from the date of the incident or from when the complainant first knew about it.
The regulations state that a responsible body should only consider a complaint after this time limit if:
We have a two stage complaints procedure. We will always try to deal with your complaint quickly however if it is clear that the matter will need a detailed investigation, we will notify you and then keep you updated on our progress.
If, after receiving our final decision, you remain dissatisfied you may take your complaint to the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman is independent of the NHS and free to use. It can help resolve your complaint, and tell the NHS how to put things right if it has got them wrong.
The Ombudsman only has legal powers to investigate certain complaints. You must have received a final response from the Practice before the Ombudsman can look at your complaint and it will generally not look into your complaint if it happened more than 12 months ago, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Address:
The Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman
Citygate
Mosley Hill
Manchester
0345 0154033
All complaints will be treated in the strictest confidence.
Where the investigation of the complaint requires consideration of the patient’s medical records, we will inform the patient or person acting on his/her behalf if the investigation will involve disclosure of information contained in those records to a person other than the Practice or an employee of the Practice.
We keep a record of all complaints and copies of all correspondence relating to complaints, but such records will be kept separate from patients’ medical records.
The Practice must submit to the local primary care organisation periodically/at agreed intervals details of the number of complaints received and actioned.
You can complain to a member of staff at the NHS service you went to, such as a GP surgery or hospital, or you can complain to the organisation in charge.
Information may be used by the CCG for clinical audit to monitor the quality of the service provided to patients with long-term conditions. Some of this information may be held centrally and used for statistical purposes (e.g. the National Diabetes Audit). When this happens, strict measures are taken to ensure that individual patients cannot be identified from the data.
We fully respect your confidentiality and will not share your medical information with any identifiable data (no names, full postcodes, NHS numbers or full dates of birth).
If you have requested that you data is not to be shared outside the practice then your information will not be included in these statistics. However sometimes your information may be requested to be used for research purposes – we will always ask your permission before releasing your information for this purpose.
If you have any queries about this please ask to speak to the Practice Manager.
We wish to make sure that your child has the opportunity to have immunisations and health checks when they are due. We share information about childhood immunisations, the 6-8 week new baby check and breast-feeding status with our NHS Trust health visitors and school nurses.
Please note this policy is only applicable if CCTV has been installed.
Closed circuit TV is installed at our premises. This is for the purposes of staff, patient and premises security. Cameras are located at various places on the premises and images from the cameras are recorded. The use of CCTV falls within the scope of the Data Protection Act. Images from cameras and recordings are held on a computer system and held in secure storage with controlled access for the required statutory period.
The CQC regulates health and social care services to ensure that safe care is provided. The Law says that we must report certain serious events to the CQC, for example, when patient safety has been put at risk.
The Caldicott Guardian/IG Lead is responsible for;
The aim of the Caldicott Guardian is to ensure the organisation implements the Caldicott principles and data security standards; there is no need to appoint a Caldicott Guardian, but there is a need to have an Information Governance lead (sometimes referred to as a Caldicott lead) who, if they are not a clinician, will need support from a clinically qualified individual.
