Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

The Data Protection Regulations in the UK include two key pieces of law:

The Data Protection Act 2018
The UK GDPR

There are other regulations in specific areas which need to be taken into account. This Privacy Notice has been written within the legislative framework as at July 2022. It will be revised as the framework and case law change. This notice was last updated July 2022.

2. What is this Privacy Notice about?

This Privacy Notice is part of the information to data subjects about how personal data is used. Being transparent and providing accessible information to individuals about how organisations will use their personal information is a key element of Data Protection Regulations.

This Privacy Notice is part of our programme to make the data processing activities we are carrying out in order to meet our healthcare obligations transparent.

The Privacy Notice tells you about information we collect and hold about you, the legal basis for collecting and holding the information, what we do with it, how we keep it secure (confidential), who we might share it with and what your rights are in relation to your information.

3. Types of information we use

We use the following types of information/data:

Personal data or sensitive personal/special categories of personal data such as:
demographics – name, address, date of birth, postcode, NHS number
racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, medical/health data, sexual life or sexual orientation data.

Pseudonymised - about individuals but with identifying details (such as name or NHS number) replaced with a unique code.
Anonymised - about individuals but with identifying details removed.
Aggregated - anonymised information grouped together so that it doesn't identify individuals.

4. What we use your personal data and special categories of personal data (known as or sensitive personal) for

We use and share information about you in a number of ways. These include:

Primary uses - information from your GP medical record which can be made available to other NHS and public sector organisations, including doctors, nurses and care professionals in order to help them make the best informed decision, and provide you with the best possible direct care delivery.

Secondary uses - information from your GP medical record involves extracting identifiable data and (usually) sharing that data with other NHS organisations, for the purpose of indirect care. Examples include using your information for research, auditing, and healthcare planning (population health management).

A national opt-out for some secondary uses exists for your data. Please see section below about National Data Opt-Out

5.What is EMIS Systems Local Record Sharing?

Your GP medical record is held on our secure clinical system called EMIS Web. This clinical system allows for local record sharing with other healthcare providers who are commissioned in your area to provide care (e.g. acute hospitals, mental and community health). Through this record sharing, clinicians are able to see clinical information entered by other organisations who are party to the EMIS local record sharing agreement.

This local sharing is used to provide direct patient care for services such as continued extended access, home visits, universal offers, musculoskeletal service, GP at front door and other neighbourhood services across North Central London in line the local care delivery strategy.

It also enables specific GPs identify their patients with highly complex, multiple morbidity and/or frailty, who might benefit from targeted multi-disciplinary team support as part of case management and care planning (the "Case Finding Purpose").

How will my information be made available?

The information is accessed in real time and on-demand, meaning that data from your GP record is neither extracted, nor uploaded, nor sent anywhere. The data remains within your GP EMIS database and users are allowed read-view access only. If you have any concerns regarding EMIS local record sharing you can opt out by speaking to your GP Surgery.

6.What do we use anonymised data for?

We use anonymised data to plan health care services. Specifically we use it to:

check the quality and efficiency of the health services we provide;
prepare performance reports on the services we provide and,
review the healthcare we provide in order they are of the highest standard.

7.Details of data linkage with other datasets

Data may be de-identified and linked so that it can be used to improve health care and development and monitor NHS performance. Where data is used for these statistical purposes, stringent measures are taken to ensure individual patients cannot be identified.

8. What safeguards are in place to ensure data that identifies me is secure?

We only use information that may identify you in accordance with the data protection legislation. This requires us to process personal data only if there is a lawful basis for doing so and that any processing must be fair and lawful.

We also ensure the information we hold is kept in secure locations, restrict access to information to authorised personnel only, protect personal and confidential information held on equipment such as laptops with encryption (which masks data so that unauthorised users cannot see or make sense of it).

Our appropriate technical and security measures include:

The ability to ensure ongoing confidentiality, integrity, availability and resilience of our systems;
the ability to quickly restore availability and access to personal information in the event of a physical or technical incident; and
a process regularly testing, assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of security measures, and ensure they comply with the concept of privacy by design and default.

The NHS Digital Code of Practice on Confidential Information applies to all of our staff, and they are required to protect your information, inform you of how your information will be used, and allow you to decide if and how your information can be shared. All Practice staff are trained to ensure information is kept confidential.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a data controller and collects data for a variety of purposes. A copy of the registration is available through the ICO website. You can search by our Practice name or ICO Data Protection Register number, both of which are given at section 6 above (contact details).

When analysing current health services and proposals for developing future services it is sometimes necessary to link separate individual datasets to be able to produce a comprehensive evaluation. This may involve linking primary care GP data with other data such as secondary uses service (SUS) data (inpatient, outpatient and A&E). In some cases there may also be a need to link local datasets which could include a range of acute-based services such as radiology, physiotherapy, audiology etc, as well as mental health and community-based services such as Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT), community nursing, podiatry etc. When carrying out this analysis, the linkage of these datasets is always done using a unique identifier that does not reveal a person’s identity.

The organisation responsible for processing de-identified and linked data under this category, on behalf of the Practice is North Central London Clinical Commissioning Group. We ensure that the data processor is legally and contractually bound to operate and prove security arrangements are in place where data that could or does identify a person are processed.

9.What are your rights?

Where information from which you can be identified is held, you have the:

Right of access to view or request copies of the records
Right to rectification of inaccurate personal data or special categories of personal data
Right to restriction of the processing of your data where accuracy of the data is contested, processing is unlawful or where we no longer need the data for the purposes of the processing
Right to object to any automated individual decision-making
Right to data portability by requesting the data which you provided to us (not data generated by us) in a structured, commonly used machine readable format. Your right to portability applies only where:
data is processed by automated means, and
you provided consent to the processing or,
the processing is necessary for the fulfilment of a contract

These rights will only apply where we cannot demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for continued processing of your personal data for the purposes of direct provision of care, and compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject.

Your right to erasure (right to be forgotten) will only apply where you had given ‘consent’ to process your personal health data and later withdrew the consent, and does not apply to the extent where the processing of your personal health data is necessary for:

archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes;

the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims

You can exercise your rights at any time by contacting the Practice (data controller) or the Data Protection Officer (DPO) at the contact addresses given, although we will first need to explain how this may affect the care you receive and any overriding legitimate grounds for the processing that may apply.

10. Gaining access to the data we hold about you

You have the right to see or have a copy of personal data we hold that can identify you. You do not need to give a reason to see your data. However, some information may be withheld under some exceptional circumstances.

If you want to access your personal information you must do so in writing or by emailing the Practice requesting a Subject Access Request (SAR), by contacting the practice at the address given or by contacting our DPO at the address given. Note that as the DPO does not have access to personal data, the DPO will forward requests to the practice, however it is a legal right for you to use this route should you choose.

Data Protection Officer

The Data Protection Officer service is provided across NCL practices by:

Name: Steve Durbin

Email: dpo.ncl@nhs.net

Please quote the practice name in any communication.

11. What is the right to know?

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) gives people a general right of access to information held by or on behalf of public authorities, promoting a culture of openness and accountability across the public sector.

a. What sort of information can I request?

In theory, you can request any information that the Practice holds that does not fall under an exemption under the FOI Act. You may not ask for information that is covered by the Data Protection Regulations under FOIA i.e. personal data. However, you can request this under a Subject Access Request – see section above ‘Gaining access to the data we hold about you’.

b. How do I make a request for information?

Your request must be in writing and can be either posted or emailed to:

Email: HGP@nhs.net

Post: Hampstead Group Practice, 75 Fleet Road, NW3 2QU

12. How the NHS and care services use your information

Whenever you use a health or care service, such as attending Accident & Emergency or using Community Care services, important information about you is collected in a patient record for that service. Collecting this information helps to ensure you get the best possible care and treatment.

The information collected about you when you use these services can also be used and provided to other organisations for purposes beyond your individual care, for instance to help with:

improving the quality and standards of care provided
research into the development of new treatments
preventing illness and diseases
monitoring safety
planning services

This may only take place when there is a clear legal basis to use this information. All these uses help to provide better health and care for you, your family and future generations. Confidential patient information about your health and care is only used like this where allowed by law.

Most of the time, anonymised data is used for research and planning so that you cannot be identified in which case your confidential patient information isn’t needed.

You have a choice about whether you want your confidential patient information to be used in this way. If you are happy with this use of information you do not need to do anything. If you do choose to opt out your confidential patient information will still be used to support your individual care.

To find out more or to register your choice to opt out, please visit www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters. On this web page you will:

See what is meant by confidential patient information
Find examples of when confidential patient information is used for individual care and examples of when it is used for purposes beyond individual care
Find out more about the benefits of sharing data
Understand more about who uses the data
Find out how your data is protected
Be able to access the system to view, set or change your opt-out setting
Find the contact telephone number if you want to know any more or to set/change your opt-out by phone
See the situations where the opt-out will not apply

You can also find out more about how patient information is used at:

https://www.hra.nhs.uk/information-about-patients/ (which covers health and care research); and

https://understandingpatientdata.org.uk/what-you-need-know (which covers how and why patient information is used, the safeguards and how decisions are made)

You can change your mind about your choice at any time.

Data being used or shared for purposes beyond individual care does not include your data being shared with insurance companies or used for marketing purposes and data would only be used in this way with your specific agreement.

Health and care organisations have until 2020 to put systems and processes in place so they can be compliant with the national data opt-out and apply your choice to any confidential patient information they use or share for purposes beyond your individual care. Our organisation is compliant with the national data opt-out policy.

13. Glossary of Terms

Common Law of Duty of Confidentiality - is not written out in one document like the UK GDPR or an Act of Parliament. Common Law is also referred to as ‘judge-made’ or case law. In practice, this means that all patient/client information, whether held on paper, computer, visually or audio recorded, or held in the memory of the professional, must not normally be disclosed without the consent of the patient/client. However, where the disclosure/sharing of the patient/client information is for the purpose of Direct Care consent to such disclosure/sharing may be implied where it is informed, given there is a legitimate relationship between the patient/client and the health professional.

Data Protection Legislation - means any laws or regulations applying to personal data in the UK.

Personal Data - means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.

Special Categories of Personal Data – data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.

National Data opt - out

How the NHS and care services use your information