Sidcup Medical Centre Privacy Notice
- Please read the complete document here or view the summary below;
Taking care of your personal information:
Summary of Sidcup Medical Centre Privacy Notice
- Doctors, nurses and other health care staff who provide you with your care keep records about your health and treatment.
- This can include information from other health organisations who are involved in your care, such as hospitals, accident and emergency services, urgent care centres, ambulances and clinics.
- Your record could be kept electronically, on paper or a mixture of both and there are various ways and technology in place to keep your information confidential and safe.
- The type of information used will be a mixture of details that identify you, including name and contact information and details of any carers, next of kin or people who look after you. It will also include details of your care and treatments; test results, medications and some sensitive information; such as ethnicity and gender (male/female).
- There are various reasons for using your information, all of which are done lawfully and in line with the GP practice duties, these include;
- to meet your healthcare needs
- preventing you and others getting ill
- checking the quality of care and improving services
- checking medication to ensure you and other are getting the best treatment
- research (with your consent)
- safeguarding, to protect children and adults from the risk of harm
- GP practice website for online services
- The NHS is committed to protecting your privacy and staff who care for you are legally required to keep your information confidential.
- We will only ever use or pass on information about you to others who are involved in your direct care or when there is a lawful basis to do so.
- Our practice will contact you by telephone or letter, but can also use text messages for appointment reminders and GP practice service messages. It is important to let your GP practice know your communication choice and that they have the correct details.
- Our practice uses a Cloud based telephone system that includes call recording.
- If you have a disability, impairment or sensory loss, the GP practice can offer communication support, such as British Sign Language, large print. The practice can also offer translation services.
- The data protection laws 2018 gives special rights to you regarding your personal information. You can request a copy of your information, have mistakes corrected, or stop your information being shared for any other reason apart from your care. Further information on your rights can be found on the GP practice website the Information Commissioners Office website and NHS Digital National data opt-out programme
- Our GP practice does not share or transfer information outside of the European Union, to third countries or international organisations.
- All organisations that process personal data have a duty to report certain types of personal data breach to the Information Commissioners Office within 72 hours of an incident occurring.
- If you have any questions or concerns, please contact:
Caldicott Guardian: | Dr S Deshmukh | 020 8302 1114 sidcupmedical@nhs.net |
Data Protection Lead: | James Cade | 020 8302 1114 sidcupmedical@nhs.net |
For further information, please speak to James Cade (0020 8302 1114) at the practice or request a full copy of the information from our website. Further information regarding your privacy and your data protection rights can be found on the Information Commissioners Office website
Subject Access Requests and Individual’s Rights
Download Subject Access Requests and Individual’s rights protocols.
Download Subject access requests / Access to health records form.
Download Individual’s rights form.
Accurx Privacy Notice
As part of the Digital First National programme of work, GP Practices are required to provide a tool for patients to access primary care services.
Sidcup Medical Centre uses 'Accurx'. Please read the complete Privacy Notice regarding Accurx here.
Surgery Connect Privacy Notice
As part of the Modern General Practice programme of work, GP Practices are required to adopt a cloud-based telephony system.
Sidcup Medical Centre uses 'Surgery Connect'. Please read the complete Privacy Notice regarding Surgery Connect here.
Primary Care Networks Enhanced Access Privacy Notice
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 Frognal Primary Care Network.
Frognal 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.
Please see Frognal PCN's Enhanced Access Privacy Notice here.
South East London Integrated Care Systems Data Services Privacy Notice
Please see South East London Integrated Care Systems' (SEL ICB) Data Services Privacy Notice
National Data Sharing Arrangement for GP Connect
Please see NDSA Transparency Notice
The GP Connect National Data Sharing Arrangement (NDSA) sets out the data sharing requirements and obligations for the use of GP Connect. This ratifies the safe sharing of clinical information through GP Connect to support direct patient care. This service is also used by 111 who liaise with GP surgeries daily and is also used to book appointments within our enhanced access hub.
General Practice Transparency Notice for GPES Data for Pandemic Planning and Research (COVID-19)
This practice is supporting vital coronavirus (COVID-19) planning and research by sharing your data with NHS Digital.
The health and social care system is facing significant pressures due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Health and care information is essential to deliver care to individuals, to support health, social care and other public services and to protect public health. Information will also be vital in researching, monitoring, tracking and managing the coronavirus outbreak. In the current emergency it has become even more important to share health and care information across relevant organisations. This practice is supporting vital coronavirus planning and research by sharing your data with NHS Digital, the national safe haven for health and social care data in England.
Our legal basis for sharing data with NHS Digital
NHS Digital has been legally directed to collect and analyse patient data from all GP practices in England to support the coronavirus response for the duration of the outbreak. NHS Digital will become the controller under the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (GDPR) of the personal data collected and analysed jointly with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who has directed NHS Digital to collect and analyse this data under the COVID-19 Public Health Directions 2020 (COVID-19 Direction).
All GP practices in England are legally required to share data with NHS Digital for this purpose under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (2012 Act). More information about this requirement is contained in the data provision notice issued by NHS Digital to GP practices.
Under GDPR our legal basis for sharing this personal data with NHS Digital is Article 6(1)(c) - legal obligation. Our legal basis for sharing personal data relating to health, is Article 9(2)(g) – substantial public interest, for the purposes of NHS Digital exercising its statutory functions under the COVID-19 Direction.
The type of personal data we are sharing with NHS Digital
The data being shared with NHS Digital will include information about patients who are currently registered with a GP practice or who have a date of death on or after 1 November 2019 whose record contains coded information relevant to coronavirus planning and research. The data contains NHS Number, postcode, address, surname, forename, sex, ethnicity, date of birth and date of death for those patients. It will also include coded health data which is held in your GP record such as details of:
- diagnoses and findings
- medications and other prescribed items
- investigations, tests and results
- treatments and outcomes
- vaccinations and immunisations
How NHS Digital will use and share your data
NHS Digital will analyse the data they collect and securely and lawfully share data with other appropriate organisations, including health and care organisations, bodies engaged in disease surveillance and research organisations for coronavirus response purposes only. These purposes include protecting public health, planning and providing health, social care and public services, identifying coronavirus trends and risks to public health, monitoring and managing the outbreak and carrying out of vital coronavirus research and clinical trials. The British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners and the National Data Guardian are all supportive of this initiative.
NHS Digital has various legal powers to share data for purposes relating to the coronavirus response. It is also required to share data in certain circumstances set out in the COVID-19 Direction and to share confidential patient information to support the response under a legal notice issued to it by the Secretary of State under the Health Service (Control of Patient Information) Regulations 2002 (COPI Regulations).
Legal notices under the COPI Regulations have also been issued to other health and social care organisations requiring those organisations to process and share confidential patient information to respond to the coronavirus outbreak. Any information used or shared during the outbreak under these legal notices or the COPI Regulations will be limited to the period of the outbreak unless there is another legal basis for organisations to continue to use the information.
Data which is shared by NHS Digital will be subject to robust rules relating to privacy, security and confidentiality and only the minimum amount of data necessary to achieve the coronavirus purpose will be shared. Organisations using your data will also need to have a clear legal basis to do so and will enter into a data sharing agreement with NHS Digital. Information about the data that NHS Digital shares, including who with and for what purpose will be published in the NHS Digital data release register.
For more information about how NHS Digital will use your data please see the NHS Digital Transparency Notice for GP Data for Pandemic Planning and Research (COVID-19).
National Data Opt-Out
The application of the National Data Opt-Out to information shared by NHS Digital will be considered on a case by case basis and may or may not apply depending on the specific purposes for which the data is to be used. This is because during this period of emergency, the National Data Opt-Out will not generally apply where data is used to support the coronavirus outbreak, due to the public interest and legal requirements to share information.
Your rights over your personal data
To read more about the health and care information NHS Digital collects, its legal basis for collecting this information and what choices and rights you have in relation to the processing by NHS Digital of your personal data, see:
Healthy.io Minuteful Kidney – Privacy Policy
The data is being processed for the purpose of delivery of a programme, sponsored by NHS Digital, to monitor urine for indications of chronic kidney disease (CKD) which is recommended to be undertaken annually for patients at risk of chronic kidney disease e.g., patients living with diabetes. The programme enables patients to test their kidney function from home. We will share your contact details with Healthy.io to enable them to contact you and send you a test kit. This will help identify patients at risk of kidney disease and help us agree any early interventions that can be put in place for the benefit of your care. Healthy.io will only use your data for the purposes of delivering their service to you. If you do not wish to receive a home test kit from Healthy.io we will continue to manage your care within the Practice. Healthy.io are required to hold data we send them in line with retention periods outlined in the Records Management code of Practice for Health and Social Care. Further information about this is available at: https://lp.healthy.io/minuteful_info/.