Practice Policies

Freedom Of Information – Publication Scheme

Locked blue folder

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 obliges the practice to produce a Publication Scheme. A Publication Scheme is a guide to the 'classes' of information the practice intends to routinely make available. This scheme is available from reception.

NHS Zero Tolerance Campaign

Kiveton Park Medical Practice supports the current campaign to reduce violence and abuse towards NHS staff. To this end we shall apply these simple guidelines:

Violent Behaviour:

A single episode of physical violence towards any member of the practice team will result in the offender being reported to the police and struck off our medical list (they will have to find another GP).

Abusive Behaviour:

While we recognise that our patients can sometimes be anxious or excitable, we will not accept rudeness or abusive behaviour towards our staff.

A single episode of such behaviour will result in a verbal warning from a senior member of the practice.

A second episode will result in a written warning from one of the GP partners. A further episode will lead to the removal of the offender from our list (they will have to find another GP).

If we make a mistake, or things that we do are not to your liking we are always keen to hear your comments, and happy to apologise where this is warranted. We only ask that you are polite, and we fully expect that we and our staff will behave in the same way towards you.

Confidentiality

A number of legal Acts relate to our duties regarding the information we hold about you. In brief, anything you say to a health professional is between the two of you, and will be entered into your record unless you ask us not to. Your records are only looked at by people in the practice involved in your care (e.g. the next doctor or nurse you see, or a doctor carrying out a routine medication review). We keep this data as safe as we can. All our staff are aware of the confidential nature of any information they encounter during the course of their work – opening mail, making appointments, typing referrals.

You should have an opportunity to decide if your health data can be used or seen for any other purposes; for that reason we inform you that records might be checked for quality at random when we have inspections for annual quality control or for training status approval. Individual pieces of information can be copied from records for administrative and research purposes, but in these cases the name of the patient is removed (e.g. we might be looking at how well we are controlling blood pressure in patients on treatment for hypertension).

If you have any questions or concerns please read the details below, and feel free to ask us.

Patient Confidentiality And Caldicott Guardians

Your Rights, Our Responsibilities

It is not possible to provide the best possible standards of health care without keeping information about you. This will include your name, address, date of birth and next of kin and details of your medical history. This information is held solely for the purpose of caring for your health. The records are stored both on paper and computer, and may take other forms such as x–ray or photographs.

We have a legal responsibility to keep confidential all the information held about you. The obligations that the NHS has, together with the rights that every individual enjoys, are set out in the Data Protection Act 1998.

Information about you may need to be shared with others involved in your care from time to time – for example, with a hospital consultant or a district nurse. The sharing of medical information is specifically covered by the Act. It states that the sharing of sensitive, patient–related information is permissible for "medical purposes" provided that it is processed by:

  • A health professional – i.e. GP, Nurse, Health Visitor
  • A person who, though not a health professional, has responsibility to preserve confidentiality

This condition will always be met by our services.

To help improve the standards of healthcare, information from your records may also be used for research and statistical analysis. In the DPA 1998 "medical purposes" is defined to include "preventative medicine, medical diagnosis, medical research, the provision of care and treatment and the management of healthcare services".

Some research studies involve interviews and questionnaires. In these cases you will be approached to see if you'd like to take part. Before making a decision to participate you should be made aware if all or part of the information is going to be anonymised. Wherever possible, information used for such purpose will be anonymised so that it is not possible to identify the patient to whom it relates. You do have the right to prevent processing and sharing of you information. However, the professionals involved in your care may encounter difficulties and delays if they are unable to share important health information.

Your Rights

The DPA 1998 gives every individual a number of rights. In brief, you have the right to:

  • Access information held about you – please note: in accordance with the Act a fee may be charged for this service
  • Prevent processing of information likely to cause distress
  • Prevent use of information about you for direct marketing
  • Correct any inaccurate records
  • Seek compensation if you suffer damage
  • Have an assessment made if you think the Act has been contravened We undertake to respect these rights. Our Obligations The DPA 1998 imposes a number of obligations on our services. In brief, these are:
  • Information about you will be processed fairly and lawfully
  • Information will be used solely for planning and delivering your healthcare and will not be used in an inappropriate way
  • The information recorded about you will be adequate and relevant, but not excessive
  • The information will be accurate and up to date
  • Information will be kept no longer than necessary
  • All of the information will be processed within the service in accordance with your rights
  • We will take all necessary measures to prevent unlawful processing, accidental loss, damage or destruction
  • Information will not be transferred to a country outside the European Economic Area, unless the country provides adequate protection of your rights as regards the processing of information

We undertake to fulfil these obligations.

Further Information

All NHS and Primary Care Trusts and GP practices have a 'Caldicott Guardian'. This is the person who oversees the systems to keep information safe and secure. Mrs Margaret Holmes has responsibility for this at Kiveton Park. Should you need any further information about the application of the DPA 1998 within the practice, please arrange to discuss it with her or one of the partners. There is also a Department of Health website that holds information about 'Caldicott Guardians' and what they do: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/index.htm

You can also contact the office of the Information Commissioner who has responsibility for ensuring good practice in all aspects of Data Protection – leaflet request line – 0870 600 8100. Their website is www.dataprotection.gov.uk

Electronic Patient Record Sharing

Your information is only available to those involved in your care such as doctors or nurses and you should never be asked for personal medical information by anyone not involved in your care. You may be asked for consent to Share In/Out your Electronic Patient Records to other healthcare professionals. This is entirely your choice and you will be asked for your written or verbal consent to sharing.

Summary Care Record – your emergency care summary

The summary care record contains information about any medicines you are taking and any allergies you may have. This is to ensure that those caring for you have enough information to treat you safely.  Your summary care record is available to authorised health professionals throughout England, but you will be asked permission before they look at it.

If you do not want healthcare professionals to have this access please ask reception for an ‘Opt Out’ form. This will ensure that your records will not be shared.

The Care Data Programme

GP practices across England will soon be required to supply patients’ personal and confidential medical information on a regular and continuous basis, to the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC). The data upload is date has not been confirmed yet but all households should have received a leaflet ‘Better information means better care’ through their letterbox in January 2014.

Many of our patients have made enquiries about opting out of the Care Data Programme or have previously decided to opt out of the Summary Care Records programme. Opting out of the Summary Care Record does not automatically mean you are opted out of the Care Data Programme, you are now required to make a separate declaration.

GP practices across England will soon be required to supply patients’ personal and confidential medical information on a regular and continuous basis, to the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC).

Details from your medical record will be extracted from the practice and will include your NHS number, date of birth, postcode, gender and ethnicity, together with your medical diagnoses (including cancer and mental health), their complications, referrals to specialists, your prescriptions, your family history, details of your vaccinations and screening tests, your blood test results, your body mass index, and your smoking/alcohol habits. This will be used by researchers and those planning health services, to make sure better care is provided to patients. If you do not wish your records to be shared in this way you should inform the Practice of this and we will make a note on your records.

This programme is called care.data and the information uploaded will be used for purposes other than your direct medical care. Medical staff treating you in GP surgeries, hospitals, A&E and out-of-hours centres will not use, or be able to use, this database. However, the uploaded data is likely to be made available to organisations outside the NHS, such as universities and commercial organisations.

Under the Health and Social Care Act 2012, GP practices have no choice but to allow the HSCIC to extract this information. Once the data has been extracted, the GP practice is no longer the data controller for that information, and cannot control or protect in any way how that information is used, shared or who has access to it.

Although GP practices cannot object to this information leaving the practice, individual patients and their families can instruct their practice to prohibit the transfer of their data, i.e. you have the right to opt-out.

If you do nothing, then your medical information will be extracted and uploaded to the HSCIC. Once uploaded, you will not be able to get this data deleted by the HSCIC.

So if you wish to opt out download an opt out form or call in the surgery for a form and return to us.

If you wish to opt out your children or other members of your family for whom you are responsible, simply print off additional copies of the form – one for each patient.

This is not the Summary Care Record. The two databases are very different. Opting out of one database does not mean that you have automatically opted out of the other.

Further independent information about the care.data programme is available online at www.care-data.info

NHS England does provide some more details at www.nhs.uk/caredata and the Health and Social Care Information Centre also has a page describing how it handles your confidential medical information at www.hscic.gov.uk/patientconf



 
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