You can be sure that anything you discuss with any member of the practice team – doctor, nurse, reception staff and counselor – will stay confidential. Even if you are under 16 nothing will be said to anyone – including parents, other family members, care workers or tutors without your permission.
This means that you can tell others about the visit, but we won’t. The only reason why we might have to consider passing on confidential information without your permission, would be to protect you or someone else from very serious harm and/or if the Law requires us to do so. We would always try to discuss this with you first.
We do not share your information for non-medical purposes that could identify you. All NHS staff have a legal duty to keep information about you confidential and they follow a staff code of practice on protecting patient confidentiality.
We only release test results to the patient, unless alternative arrangements have been agreed in writing.
We follow the guidelines set out and agreed between the British Medical Association, Royal College of General Practitioners and the Department of Health on Records and Confidentiality. You will be able to find further details on www.rcgp.org.uk and www.bma.org.uk. If you have any concerns about confidentiality, please feel free to ask a member of staff.
Patient medical information
General information
To give you the care you need, we keep information about your visit to the surgery. This information contains your personal details such as name, date of birth and address. We also keep information about your health from our own observation and investigations and all correspondence from other health care providers whom you have visited. We share this information with other health care organisations when we refer you to them for further care at your request. We also need to use your personal information to improve our services and to check that they are up to date.
Emergency Care Summary
The Emergency Care Summary (ECS) is a summary of basic information about you and your health, which might be important if you need urgent medical care. When the surgery is closed, or when you go to an accident and emergency department, it means that all NHS staff looking after you can get important information about your health, even if they cannot contact your surgery. This summary contains your personal details, information about any medicines prescribed at your surgery and any bad reactions you have had to any medicines that is recorded on our system.
For more information about the Emergency Care Summary or electronic health records, phone the NHS Inform helpline on 0800 22 44 88.
You have a right to withhold any information about you leaving our surgery. Please discuss this with your GP first before taking any action.