How do we use your information?
We need to hold personal information about you both electronically and using paper records to help us to look after your health needs, and we are responsible for their accuracy and safe-keeping. The information (“data”) that we need – such as your name, address, date of birth, contact details as well as next of kin, medical conditions and details of appointments, visits, telephone calls, your health record, treatment and medicines, test results, X-rays and any other information to enable us to care for you. Please help to keep your record up to date by informing us of any changes to your circumstances for example a change of address, contact numbers.
For further information you can access the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
Minet Green Health Practice Fair Processing Notice
From time to time information may be shared with others involved in your care e.g. podiatry, District Nursing, hospitals and other Health Professionals, if it is necessary. Anyone with access to your record is properly trained in confidentiality issues and is governed by both a legal and contractual duty to keep your details private We will not share identifiable information with anyone that isn’t involved in your care unless legally required to for example if a court order is presented, or in the case of public health issues. In other circumstances you may be required to give written consent before information is released – such as for Medical Reports for insurance, solicitors etc.
To ensure your privacy, we will not disclose information over the telephone, email or fax unless we are sure that we are talking to you. Information will not be disclosed to family, friends, or spouses unless we have prior consent from you, and we do not leave messages with others.
You have a right to see your records if you wish. Please speak to one of the Patient Services team if you would like further details.
If you would like further information about how your information is used and shared or you would like to make a complaint please see our contact us page.
Phonecall recordings
All inbound and outbound calls are recorded for training and monitoring purposes, and will be stored securely for up to 36 months.
Call recordings do not form a part of the medical record, but requests for copies of telephone conversations can be made separately under the Data Protection Act as a “Subject Access Request.” After assessing whether the information can be released, the practice will make appropriate arrangements for the requester to access the recording.
If you would like a copy of our full policy on call recordings, please contact the practice.
The London Care Record
The London Care Record (LCR) is a digital shared care record solution, which enables health and care staff to have one secure view of a person’s relevant heath and care information. It was formerly known as “Connect Care”.
With the LCR, information is transferred securely, via a health information exchange system – this enables more effective care by care professionals at the first point of contact.
SEL ICS London Care Record Privacy Notice
NHS South East London Integrated Care Board
NHS South East London ICS – Data Service Privacy Notice
GP2GP
If you change GP practices and both your previous GP and your new GP have access to GP2GP, your electronic patient record will be transferred directly and securely to your new practice. Your paper record will also be transferred securely between practices but this may take some time (6-8 weeks). In the meantime your GP will have access to key information about you from your computer records. Read our leaflet (PDF) for full details about how GP2GP works.
Summary Care Record
Some of your data is automatically copied to the Shared Care Summary Record. You would have been asked to opt in or out when you registered with us. If you wish to reconsider or do not consider that you have opted in or out, you may contact our patient services team to discuss further and appropriate action will be taken. A Summary Care Record is an electronic record containing key health information, which can be made available to NHS healthcare staff caring for you in an emergency or when your GP practice is closed.
We share information when the law requires us to do so, for instance when we are inspected or reporting certain illnesses or safeguarding vulnerable people.
We encourage patients to sign up to online services (Patients Access) where you can also access your medical records. Please speak to our patient services team for further details and details of how to sign up.
For more info on SCR please see this website.
Clinical Research at Minet Green Health Practice
Minet Green Health Practice is proud to work collaboratively with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network (CRN), which is the Research arm of the NHS.
Clinical Research is very important to improve care, treatments and ultimately patients’ quality of life.
Minet Green Health Practice supports several different types of Primary Care studies which have been ethically approved.
If you are a patient at Minet Green Health Practice, you may receive invitation letters to ask if you wish to take part in a research study. Joining in a research study is completely voluntary.
However, if you do not wish to be contacted about research studies please complete our online Research Opt Out Form.
Don’t want to share?
All our patients can also choose not to share their information for research purposes. Should you wish to opt out of data collection, please see:
digital.nhs.uk/services/national-data-opt-out-programme
Fiveways Primary Care Network – Enhanced Access
Primary Care Networks (PCNs) are a key part of the NHS Long Term Plan, with all general practices being required to be in a network. This practice is part of the Fiveways Primary Care Network.
Fiveways PCN is made up of a number GP Practices created to work collaboratively to ensure the health care system within our area works effectively by sharing knowledge and resources.
The following practices are part of Fiveways PCN:
- Minet Green Health Practice
- Vassall Medical Centre
- Herne Hill Road Medical Practice
- The Corner Surgery
The enhanced access service for our patients requires the following joined up working:
- Interoperable IT solution across the service
- Clinical system interoperability
- Telephony interoperability
- Data Sharing between the PCN practices
To enable us to provide our Enhanced Access Service to you, GPs from other local practices and our local Federation (Lambeth GP Federation), will at times have access to your full GP record but only when providing direct care to you.
People who have access to your information will only normally have access to that which they need to fulfil their roles, for instance admin staff will normally only see your name, address, contact details, appointment history and registration details in order to book appointments, the practice nurses will normally have access to your immunisation, treatment, significant active and important past histories, your allergies and relevant recent contacts whilst the GP you see or speak to will normally have access to everything in your record.
View privacy statement for enhanced access (PDF).
iGPR
We use a processor, iGPR Technologies Limited (“iGPR”), to assist us with responding to report requests relating to your patient data, such as subject access requests that you submit to us (or that someone acting on your behalf submits to us) and report requests that insurers submit to us under the Access to Medical Records Act 1988 in relation to a life insurance policy that you hold or that you are applying for.
iGPR manages the reporting process for us by reviewing and responding to requests in accordance with our instructions and all applicable laws, including UK data protection laws. The instructions we issue to iGPR include general instructions on responding to requests and specific instructions on issues that will require further consultation with the GP responsible for your care.
Privacy notice
Data usage and consent
This GP practice keeps data on you relating to: who you are, where you live, what you do, your family, possibly your friends, your employers, your habits, your problems and diagnoses, the reasons you seek help, your appointments, where you are seen and when you are seen, who by, referrals to specialists and other healthcare providers, tests carried out here and in other places, investigations and scans, treatments and outcomes of treatments, your treatment history, the observations and opinions of other healthcare workers, within and without the NHS as well as comments and aide memoires reasonably made by healthcare professionals in this practice who are appropriately involved in your health care.
GPs have always delegated tasks and responsibilities to others that work with them in their surgeries, on average an NHS GP has between 1,500 to 2,500 patients for whom he or she is accountable. It is not possible for the GP to provide hands on personal care for each and every one of those patients in those circumstances, for this reason GPs share your care with others, predominantly within the practice but occasionally with outside organisations.
If your health needs require care from others, elsewhere outside this practice, we will exchange with them whatever information about you that is necessary for them to provide that care. When you make contact with healthcare providers outside the practice but within the NHS it is usual for them to send us information relating to that encounter. We will retain part or all of those reports. Normally we will receive equivalent reports of contacts you have with non-NHS services but this is not always the case.
Your consent to this sharing of data, within the GP practice and with those others outside the practice is assumed and is allowed by the Law.
People who have access to your information will only normally have access to that which they need to fulfil their roles, for instance admin staff will normally only see: your name, address, contact details, appointment history and registration details in order to book appointments. The practice nurses will normally have access to your immunisation, treatment, significant active and important past histories, your allergies and relevant recent contacts whilst the GP you see or speak to will normally have access to everything in your record.
You have the right to object to our sharing your data in these circumstances, but we have an overriding responsibility to do what is in your best interests. Please see below.
We are required by Articles in the General Data Protection Regulations to provide you with the information in the following 9 subsections.
1) Controller
Minet Green Health Practice
Akerman Health Centre
60 Patmos Road
London SW9 6AF
2) Data Protection Officer
David Birkinshaw
gpdpo@selondonics.nhs.uk
3) Purpose of the processing
Direct Care is care delivered to the individual alone, most of which is provided in the GP Practice. After a patient agrees to a referral for direct care elsewhere, such as a referral to a specialist in a hospital, necessary and relevant information about the patient, their circumstances and their problem will need to be shared with the other healthcare workers, such as specialist, therapists, technicians etc. The information that is shared is to enable the other healthcare workers to provide the most appropriate advice, investigations, treatments, therapies and or care.
4) Lawful basis for processing
The processing of personal data in the delivery of direct care and for providers’ administrative purposes in this GP Practice and in support of direct care elsewhere is supported under the following Article 6 and 9 conditions of the GDPR:
Article 6(1)(e) ‘…necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority…’.
Article 9(2)(h) ‘necessary for the purposes of preventative or occupational medicine for the assessment of the working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services…”
We will also recognise your rights established under UK case law collectively known as the “Common Law Duty of Confidentiality”.*
5) Recipient or categories of recipients of the processed data
The data will be shared specifically for the Diabetes Test Bed Project with Health and care professionals employed by the following organisations:
– Oviva – Controller
– Wandsworth CCG – Processor
– NEL CSU – Processor
– EMIS – Sub Processor
– Healum – Sub Processor
– Citizen Comms – Sub Processor
6) Rights to object
You have the right to object to some or all the information being processed under Article 21. Please contact the Controller or the practice. You should be aware that this is a right to raise an objection, that is not the same as having an absolute right to have your wishes granted in every circumstance.
7) Right to access and correct
You have the right to access the data that is being shared and have any inaccuracies corrected. There is no right to have accurate medical records deleted except when ordered by a court of Law.
8) Retention period
The data will be retained in line with the law and national guidance.
9) Right to Complain
You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, you can use this link ico.org.uk or call their helpline Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (national rate)
There are National Offices for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, (see ICO website).
* “Common Law Duty of Confidentiality”, common law is not written out in one document like an Act of Parliament. It is a form of law based on previous court cases decided by judges; hence, it is also referred to as ‘judge-made’ or case law. The law is applied by reference to those previous cases, so common law is also said to be based on precedent.
The general position is that if information is given in circumstances where it is expected that a duty of confidence applies, that information cannot normally be disclosed without the information provider’s consent.
In practice, this means that all patient information, whether held on paper, computer, visually or audio recorded, or held in the memory of the professional, must not normally be disclosed without the consent of the patient. It is irrelevant how old the patient is or what the state of their mental health is; the duty still applies.
Three circumstances making disclosure of confidential information lawful are:
- where the individual to whom the information relates has consented;
- where disclosure is in the public interest; and
- where there is a legal duty to do so, for example a court order.
View our additional privacy notices here.
eMR – medi2data
