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.

Making Health Care Information Accessible

The Accessible Information Standard (AIS) is a new NHS England information standard which must be implemented by all organisations that provide NHS or adult social care.  The AIS aims to ensure that people who have a disability impairment or sensor loss receive information that they can access and understand.  For example large print, braille, professional communication support if they need it such as British Sign Language interpreter.

We want to get better at communicating with our patients.  We want to make sure you can read and understand the information we send you.  If you find it hard to read our letters or if you need someone to support you at appointments, please let us know.

• If you need information in braille, large print or easy read
• If you need a British Sign Language interpreter or advocate
• If we can support you to lipread or use a hearing aid or communication tool

This information will be recorded on your medical record in a standard way and highlighted to ensure we have information on your communication needs.

This information may be shared with other NHS and adult social care providers if required.

NHS England has produced the resources below to provide an update on the accessible information standard:

• Accessible Information Standard
• Accessible Information Standard (easy read)
• Accessible Information Shared – British Sign Language (see below)
• https://youtu.be/0uiVd7i4U04

We make every effort to give the best service possible to everyone who attends our practice.

However, we are aware that things can go wrong resulting in a patient feeling that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, we would wish for the matter to be settled as quickly, and as amicably, as possible.

To pursue a complaint please contact the Complaints Officer who will deal with your concerns appropriately. Further written information is available regarding the complaints procedure from reception.

Complaints Procedure

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.

Please find below our Practice Policies relating to the General Protection Regulations (GDPR) and the 2018 Data Protection Act which protects the personal data of our patients and staff

The key terms

GDPR and other data protection laws rely on the term ‘personal data’ to discuss information about individuals.  There are two key types of personal data in the UK and they cover different categories of information.

What is personal data?

Personal data can be anything that allows a living person to be directly or indirectly identified.  This may be a name, an address, or even an IP address.  It includes automated personal data and can also encompass pseudonymised data if a person can be identified from it.

What is sensitive personal data?

GDPR calls sensitive personal data as being in ‘special categories’ of information.  These include trade union membership, religious beliefs, political opinions, racial information and sexual orientation.

Privacy Notice-Safeguarding

GDPR Practice Privacy Notice

Patient Privacy Notice

Privacy Notice-Care Quality Commission

Privacy Notice-Direct Care

Privacy Notice-Duty of Care Emergencies

Privacy Notice-National Screening Programs

Privacy Notice-NHS Digital

Privacy Notice-Payments

Privacy Notice-Public Health

Privacy Notice-Risk Stratification

Privacy Notice-Summary Care Records

How We Use Your Information

This leaflet briefly explains why the doctor’s surgery collects information about you, and how that information may be used.

The health care professionals who provide you with care maintain records about your health and any treatment or care you have received previously (e.g. NHS Trust, GP Surgery, Walk-in clinic, etc.). These records help to provide you with the best possible healthcare.

Records may be held in electronic or manual (written down) format, and may include the following information;

• Details about you, such as address and next of kin
• Any contact the surgery has had with you, such as appointments, clinic visits, emergency appointments, etc.
• Notes and reports about your health
• Details about your treatment and care
• Results of investigations, such as laboratory tests, x-rays, etc.
• Relevant information from other health professionals, relatives or those who care for you and know you well

To ensure you receive the best possible care, your records are used to facilitate the care you receive. Information held about you may be used to help protect the health of the public and to help us manage the NHS. Information may be used for clinical audit to monitor the quality of the service provided. Where we do this, we take strict measures to ensure that individual patients cannot be identified.

Some of this information will be held centrally and used for statistical purposes. Where we do this, we take strict measures to ensure that individual patients cannot be identified.

Sometimes your information may be requested to be used for research purposes – the surgery will always endeavour to gain your consent before releasing the information.

Should you have any concerns about how your information is managed at the surgery please contact the Practice Manager to discuss how the disclosure of your personal information can be limited.

How do we maintain the confidentiality of your records?

Every member of staff who works for an NHS organisation has a legal obligation to keep information about you confidential. Anyone who receives information from an NHS organisation has a legal duty to keep it confidential.

We maintain our duty of confidentiality to you at all times. We will only ever use or pass on information about you if others involved in your care have a genuine need for it. We will not disclose your information to any third party without your permission unless there are exceptional circumstances (i.e. life or death situations), or where the law requires information to be passed on.

Who are our partner organisations?

We may also have to share your information, subject to strict agreements on how it will be used, with the following organisations;

• NHS Trusts
• Specialist Trusts
• Independent Contractors such as dentists, opticians, pharmacists
• Private Sector Providers
• Voluntary Sector Providers
• Ambulance Trusts
• Clinical Commissioning Groups
• Social Care Services
• Local Authorities
• Education Services
• Fire and Rescue Services
• Police
• Other ‘data processors’

Access to your Information

You have a right under the Data Protection Act 1998 to access/view what information the surgery holds about you, and to have it amended or removed should it be inaccurate. This is known as ‘the right of subject access’. If you would like to make a ‘subject access request’, please contact the practice manager in writing.

If you would like further information about how we use your information, or if you do not want us to use your information in this way, please contact the Practice Manager.

Tel. 01928 712061 (for main practice contact)

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 General Manager.

Stands for General Data Protection Regulations and is a new piece of legislation that will supersede the Data Protection Act (DPA).  The Practice already complies with the DPA, the GDPR is in place to strengthen many of the DPA’s principles.

All GP practices are required to declare the mean earnings (e.g. average pay) for GPs working to deliver NHS services to patients at each practice.

The average pay for GPs working in Murdishaw Health Centre in the last financial year was £116,136 before tax and National Insurance. This is for 1 full time GP, 1 part time GP and 1 Locum GP who have worked in the practice for more than six months.”

“NHS England require that the net earnings of doctors engaged in the practice is publicised, and the required disclosure is shown below. However, it should be noted that the prescribed method for calculating earnings is potentially misleading because it takes no account of how much time doctors spend working in the practice and should not be used to form any judgement about GP earnings, nor to make any comparison with any other practice.”

The Practice takes it very seriously if a member of staff or one of the doctors or nursing team is treated in an abusive or violent way.

The Practice supports the government’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ campaign for Health Service Staff. This states that GPs and their staff have a right to care for others without fear of being attacked or abused. To successfully provide these services a mutual respect between all the staff and patients has to be in place. All our staff aim to be polite, helpful, and sensitive to all patients’ individual needs and circumstances. They would respectfully remind patients that very often staff could be confronted with a multitude of varying and sometimes difficult tasks and situations, all at the same time.  The staff understand that ill patients do not always act in a reasonable manner and will take this into consideration when trying to deal with a misunderstanding or complaint.

However, aggressive behaviour, be it violent or abusive, will not be tolerated and may result in you being removed from the Practice list and, in extreme cases, the Police being contacted.

In order for the practice to maintain good relations with their patients the practice would like to ask all its patients to read and take note of the occasional types of behaviour that would be found unacceptable:

• Using bad language or swearing at practice staff
• Any physical violence towards any member of the Primary Health Care Team or other patients, such as pushing or shoving
• Verbal abuse towards the staff in any form including verbally insulting the staff
• Racial abuse and sexual harassment will not be tolerated within this practice
• Persistent or unrealistic demands that cause stress to staff will not be accepted. Requests will be met wherever possible and explanations given when they cannot
• Causing damage/stealing from the Practice’s premises, staff or patients
• Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently

Removal from the practice list

A good patient-doctor relationship, based on mutual respect and trust, is the cornerstone of good patient care. The removal of patients from our list is an exceptional and rare event and is a last resort in an impaired patient-practice relationship. When trust has irretrievably broken down, it is in the patient’s interest, just as much as that of the practice, that they should find a new practice. An exception to this is on immediate removal on the grounds of violence e.g. when the Police are involved.

Removing other members of the household

In rare cases, however, because of the possible need to visit patients at home it may be necessary to terminate responsibility for other members of the family or the entire household. The prospect of visiting patients where a relative who is no longer a patient of the practice by virtue of their unacceptable behaviour resides, or being regularly confronted by the removed patient, may make it too difficult for the practice to continue to look after the whole family. This is particularly likely where the patient has been removed because of violence or threatening behaviour and keeping the other family members could put doctors or their staff at risk.