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.

GDPR

What is GDPR? Watch a Short Video here 

GDPR - How your information will be used

1. As one of your health and social care providers, Kingswood Medical Centre needs to keep and process information about you for normal health care purposes. The information we hold and process will be used for our management and administrative use only. We will keep and use it to provide health care and manage our relationship with you effectively, lawfully and appropriately, during your registration, whilst you are under our care, at the time when have been discharged or no longer under our care. This includes using information to enable us to comply with any service/performance contracts, to comply with any legal requirements, pursue the legitimate interests of the Practice and to protect our legal position in the event of legal proceedings. If you do not provide this data, we may be unable in some circumstances to comply with our obligations and we will tell you about the implications of that decision.

2. As a business we may sometimes need to process your data to pursue our legitimate business interests, for example to prevent fraud, for administrative purposes or to manage your health care. We will never process your data where these interests are overridden by your own interests.

3. Much of the information we hold will have been provided by you, but some may come from other internal sources, such as clinical and administrative staff, or in some cases, external sources, such as other health and social care providers.
4. The sort of information we hold includes your contact details, your medical records; correspondence with or about you, for example information from other health and social care organisations, medications; records of appointments, visits and other attendances.
5. Where we record or process special categories of information relating to your health and social care records, racial or ethnic origin, religious, biometric data or sexual orientation, we will always obtain your explicit consent to those activities unless this is required by law or the information is required to provide healthcare.
6. Where we are processing data based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.
7. We may record computer and telephone/mobile telephone contacts.
8. Other than as mentioned below, we will only disclose information about you to third parties if we are legally obliged to do so or where we need to comply with our contractual duties to you, for instance we may need to pass on certain information to our external health insurance schemes.
9. We may transfer information about you to other organisations for purpose connected with your healthcare or the management of Kingswood business, such as Commissioning bodies, hospital trusts, health and social care services.
10. In limited and necessary circumstances, your information may be transferred outside of the EU or to an international organisation to comply with our legal or contractual requirements. We have in place safeguards to ensure the security of your data. A copy of the safeguards can be obtained from the practice.
11. Your personal data will be stored only for as long as we require it in relation to the purpose for which it was collected and/or processed.
12. If in future we intend to process your personal data for a purpose other than that which it was collected we will provide you with information on that purpose and any other relevant information.

Your rights

1. Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) you have a number of rights with regard to your personal data. You have the right to request from us access to and rectification or erasure of your personal data. You also have the right to restrict processing, object to processing as well as in certain circumstances the right to data portability.
2. If you have provided consent for the processing of your data you have the right (in certain circumstances) to withdraw that consent at any time which will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before your consent was withdrawn.
3. You have the right to lodge a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office if you believe that we have not complied with the requirements of the GDPR with regard to your personal data.

Identity and contact details of controller and data protection officer

Kingswood Medical Centre is the controller and processor of data for the purpose of GDPR.

If you have any concerns as to how your data is processed you should contact:

Data Protection Officer (DPO): Jane Marley (msegp.ig@nhs.net)

By writing: Phoenix Court, Christopher Martin Road, Basildon, SS14 3HG

Privacy Notice and Fair Processing

Privacy Notice- Children

Data Protection Policy

Mid and South Essex ICB Fair processing notice

Mid and South Essex ICB “Using your data to plan and-support-better-care”

Freedom of Information

Information about the General Practitioners 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.

Your rights and responsibilities 

Attending a busy GP Practice as a patient can be an anxious and worrying time for you. We aim to make your time here as short and as simple as possible and the following should help to explain what you, as a patient, can expect from our staff and what we, the staff, can expect from you.

Your Doctor’s Responsibilities

• Consider your needs and provide a professional and confidential service and work in partnership with you, your family, carers and representatives
• Consider what would most benefit your health and wellbeing and discuss any decision in a clear and transparent way.
• Treat you equally and with dignity and respect
• Encourage you to take part in decisions about your health and wellbeing by providing you with the information and support to do so
• Learn from any mistakes and ensure that, should any occur, we fully investigate. If harm has been caused, we will provide an appropriate explanation and apology.
• Offer you your named GP, or GPs, of choice where possible for continuity of care
• Listen to you and involve you in decision making regarding your treatment options
• Consider and respect your feedback

Your Responsibilities as a Patient

• Use our service responsibly and not expect immediate treatment for non-urgent/routine conditions
• Take personal responsibility for your own health
• Treat staff and other patients with respect and recognise that violence or the causing of nuisance or disturbance these premises could result in prosecution
• Recognise that abusive and violent behaviour could result in you being requested to register elsewhere
• Provide accurate information about your health, condition and status
• Keep to any appointments or cancel within a reasonable time to allow the appointment to be reused for another patient
• Follow the course of treatment to which you have agreed and talk to your clinician if you find this difficult
• Participate in important public health programmes such as vaccination
• Utilise the services of other professional practice staff as a GP is not necessarily the most appropriate clinician to see on all occasions
• Allow sufficient time for processing repeat prescription requests and not pressure staff to process unauthorised medication requests
• Keep us informed of any name, address and telephone number changes. 

Failure to meet these expectations may result in the practice requesting that you register elsewhere at another GP practice.