Your Information

How we use your information

Information will be held centrally; but can be extracted to be used for statistical purposes; stringent measures are taken to ensure that individual patients can not be identified. Anonymous pseudonymised statistical information may be passed to organisations with a legitimate interest.

Such organisations may include:

• Strategic Health Authorities
• NHS Trusts
• Primary Care Trusts
• Ambulance Services
• Clinical Commissioning Groups
• Research
• NHS England
• National Diabetes Audit – the new legal basis for data to be collected by the NDA (Direction under section 254 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012), will mean that GP practices and specialist services are required to supply the data for their practice or diabetes clinic.

Information extracted by NHS England – General Practice Extraction Service may be identifiable. Patients have the right to refuse/withdraw consent at any time and can do so by contacting the practice.

Information may also be needed to help educate tomorrow’s clinical staff and to carry out medical, and other, health research for the benefit of everyone.

Sometimes the law requires us to pass on information; for example, to notify a birth.

The NHS Central Register for England and Wales contains basic personal details of all patients registered with a General Practitioner. The Register does not contain any clinical information.

You have a right to access to your own health records.

Everyone working for the NHS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential.
You may be receiving care from other people as well as the NHS. So that we can all work together, for your benefit, we may need to share some information about you.

We only ever use, or pass on information about you if people have a genuine need for it and it is in everyone’s interests. The sharing of some types of very sensitive, personal, information is strictly controlled by law.

Anyone who receives information from us is also under a legal duty to keep it confidential.