NHS England » National COVID-19 and Flu Vaccination Programmes
Agreement East London Health and Care Partnership overarching ISA by Organisation Barts Health NHS Trust THE PRIVACY NOTICE WEB SITE LINK https://www.eastlondonhcp.nhs.uk/aboutus/fair-processing-and-gdpr.htm
NHS Digital’s legal power to collect the data is provided under COVID-19 Public Health Directions and the data will be collected and managed in accordance with NHS Digital’s strict information governance and security protocols. The data collection will continue until 30 September 2020 and will be reviewed before then. If there is a continued need for the data for COVID-19 purposes it will continue with six monthly reviews until the expiry of the Direction which is currently 31 March 2022.
Confidentiality & Medical Records
The practice complies with data protection and access to medical records legislation. Identifiable information about you will be shared with others in the following circumstances:
- To provide further medical treatment for you e.g. from district nurses and hospital services
- To help you get other services e.g. from the social work department. This requires your consent
- When we have a duty to others e.g. in child protection cases anonymised patient information will also be used at local and national level to help the Health Board and Government plan services e.g. for diabetic care.
If you do not wish anonymous information about you to be used in such a way, please let us know.
Reception and administration staff require access to your medical records in order to do their jobs. These members of staff are bound by the same rules of confidentiality as the medical staff.
Freedom of Information
Information about the General Practioners and the practice required for disclosure under this act can be made available to the public. All requests for such information should be made to the practice manager.
Access to Records
In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Access to Health Records Act, patients may request to see their medical records. Such requests should be made through the practice manager and may be subject to an administration charge. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.
We are committed to complying to right of access requests under Data Protection Act 2018 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
However, the NHS is facing unprecedented challenges relating to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic at the current time. Understandably, our resources have been diverted to support our front-line colleagues who are working tremendously hard to provide care for our patients, and to those in need of our services.
The Information Commissioners Office has recognised the current situation in the NHS https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/icos-blog-on-its-information-rights-work/.
We strive to be transparent and to work with an open culture. But at this time, whilst care of our patients and the safety of our staff takes precedent, it is likely that responses to some requests for information or records will be delayed. We apologise for this position in advance, and will endeavour to provide you with as much information as we can, as soon as we are able.
It may therefore take up to the statutory deadline of 3 months in certain cases to respond to Subject Access Requests.
For Freedom of Information requests, the Practice will try and continue to process them as normal, but this will be dependent on the availability of staff.
Complaints, Comments, Suggestions
Complaints
We always try to provide the best service possible, but there may be times when you feel this has not happened. The following information explains our in-house complaints procedure, drawn up to respond to patient grievances.
Our practice procedure is not able to deal with questions of legal liability or compensation. We hope you will use it to allow us to look into and, if necessary, correct any problems that you have identified, or mistakes that have been made. If you use this procedure it will not affect your right to complain to the Health Service Authority. Please note that we have to respect our duty of confidentiality to patients and a patient’s consent will be necessary if a complaint is not made by the patient in person.
If you wish to make complaint, please write to our practice manager. Full details will be taken and a decision made on how best to undertake the investigation.
We believe it is important to deal with complaints swiftly; occasionally it may take longer, but we will keep you informed throughout. We will try to address your concerns, provide you with an explanation and discuss any action that may be needed.
Comments & Suggestions
We are happy to accept and consider comments and suggestions from our patients. Please present your views in writing at reception or .
Violence Policy
The NHS operate a zero tolerance policy with regard to violence and abuse and the practice has the right to remove violent patients from the list with immediate effect in order to safeguard practice staff, patients and other persons. Violence in this context includes actual or threatened physical violence or verbal abuse which leads to fear for a person’s safety. In this situation we will notify the patient in writing of their removal from the list and record in the patient’s medical records the fact of the removal and the circumstances leading to it.