Patient Record

Patient Data and Your Options

General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDfPR)

This practice is supporting vital health and care planning and research by sharing your data with NHS Digital.

This collection will start on 1 September 2021.   *** Latest information: The start of this collection has now been postponed from 1st September 2021. We will update this page once NHS Digital have confirmed the new start date.  ***

If you do not want your data to be shared with NHS Digital please register your Opt-out

What data is shared:

Data may be shared from the GP medical records about:

  • any living patient registered at a GP practice in England when the collection started - this includes children and adults
  • any patient who died after 1 September 2021, and was previously registered at a GP practice in England when the data collection started

NHS Digital will not collect patients’ names or addresses. Any other data that could directly identify patients (such as NHS Number, date of birth, full postcode) is replaced with unique codes which are produced by de-identification software before the data is shared with NHS Digital.

This process is called pseudonymisation and means that patients will not be identified directly in the data. NHS Digital will be able to use the software to convert the unique codes back to data that could directly identify patients in certain circumstances, and where there is a valid legal reason.

If you would prefer that your identifiable patient data is only shared for your own health care purposes, you can opt-out in 2 ways:

  • Type 1 opt out which prevents your identifiable patient data being extracted from GP patient records by NHSD and which has to be registered by your Practice 

  • National Data Opt-out which prevents NHSD onward sharing of the held data with other organisations and which and can be done without contacting  your Practice

You can complete both of these opt out solutions if you prefer.

For more information about this process from NHS digital click HERE

 

Sharing Your Medical Record

Increasingly, patient medical data is shared e.g. between GP surgeries and District Nursing, in order to give clinicians access to the most up to date information when attending patients.

The systems we operate require that any sharing of medical information is consented to by patients beforehand. Patients must consent to sharing of the data held by a health provider out to other health providers and must also consent to which of the other providers can access their data.

e.g. it may be necessary to share data held in GP practices with district nurses but the local podiatry department would not need to see it to undertake their work. In this case, patients would allow the surgery to share their data, they would allow the district nurses to access it but they would not allow access by the podiatry department. In this way access to patient data is under patients' control and can be shared on a 'need to know' basis.

Emergency Care Summary

There is a Central NHS Computer System called the Emergency Care Summary (ECS). The Emergency Care Summary is meant to help emergency doctors and nurses help you when you contact them when the surgery is closed. It will contain information on your medications and allergies.

Your information will be extracted from practices such as ours and held securely on central NHS databases.   

As with all systems there are pros and cons to think about. When you speak to an emergency doctor you might overlook something that is important and if they have access to your medical record it might avoid mistakes or problems, although even then, you should be asked to give your consent each time a member of NHS Staff wishes to access your record, unless you are medically unable to do so.

On the other hand, you may have strong views about sharing your personal information and wish to keep your information at the level of this practice. If you don’t want an Emergency Care Summary to be made for you, tell your GP surgery. Don’t forget that if you do have an Emergency Care Summary, you will be asked if staff can look at it every time they need to. You don’t have to agree to this.

NPMC Fair Processing Notice

 

Fair Processing Notice (patients) (1).docx

GDPR Patient Privacy Notice

 

GDPR Patient Privacy Notice ver 2.4 November 2021.docx