Confidentiality policy

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.

General Practice Extraction Service (GPES)

The General Practice Extraction Service will be used to extract data, to help improve patient care and the services provided.

The identifiers to be extracted are: NHS number, date of birth, postcode and gender which will allow patients’ GP data to be linked to their hospital data. No free text will be extracted, only coded information about referrals, NHS prescriptions and other clinical data.

If you wish to opt out of the sharing of the data or have any concerns please speak to a member of staff at the practice, or visit www.nhs.uk/caredata for more information.

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

All patients’ details, including medical records are kept on computer.  The practice is registered with the Data Protection Bureau.  If you require seeing your computer record this can be arranged by contacting the practice manager.  There may be a charge for this.

All staff have signed a contract of confidentiality and we will not disclose anything from your records without your signed consent to do so.

Patient Online Access to GP Record

If you are a registered online user you will be able to view summary information, which means data relating to medications, allergies and adverse reactions. To obtain a password to register for online services you need to visit the surgery and ask at the reception desk.