General Data Protection Regulation

Information about you and the care you receive is shared, in a secure system, by healthcare staff to support your treatment and care.

It is important that we, the NHS, can use this information to plan and improve services for all patients. We would like to link information from all the different places where you receive care, such as your GP, hospital and community service, to help us provide a full picture. This will allow us to compare the care you received in one area against the care you received in another, so we can see what has worked best.

Information such as your postcode and NHS number, but not your name, will be used to link your records in a secure system, so your identity is protected. Information which does not reveal your identity can then be used by others, such as researchers and those planning health services, to make sure we provide the best care possible for everyone.

You have a choice. If you are happy for your information to be used in this way you do not have to do anything. If you have any concerns or wish to prevent this from happening, please speak to practice staff or download a copy of the leaflet below. Otherwise download the ‘care data opt out form’ and return to the practice.

We need to make sure that you know this is happening and the choices you have.

Patient Information Leaflet

Practice Privacy Notice

Care Data Opt Out Form

General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR)

New regulations mean we will be obliged to share your NHS records with NHS Digital for the purposes of NHS planning and approved medical research. Please familiarise yourself with the recent changes on the link here.

All GP practices are required to declare their mean earnings for GPs contracted to deliver NHS services to patients at each practice.

The average pay for GPs who worked for six months or more in Banbury Road Medical Centre in the last financial year was £77,289 before tax and national insurance. This is for 1 eight session GP, 5 less than eight session GPs and 1 locum GP.

Please note that sessions only involve conducting patient appointments between 8am and 630pm, however there is much additional administrative work that we are also obliged to undertake when running a healthcare organisation other than consulting patients.

• Online systems may allow proxy access where a third party, who may or may not be registered with the practice, to be given login details to have online access to the patients’ transactional services and/or record. This can be very useful in certain circumstances.
• If the patient chooses to share access to their online GP account with someone else (their proxy), there are advantages for the patient if the practice gives the proxy their own login credentials including a separate password.
• The GP record may contain very sensitive information that they wish to keep private. Even the prescribing record may reveal confidential information about them. The patient should check through their entire online record to ensure that there is nothing there that they would not want their proxy to see. Patients must have complete trust in anyone who they allow to have access to their online account. If they are in any doubt they should not share, or they should ask the practice to redact any sensitive data where it is possible.
• There are many circumstances where this can be helpful. It may be convenient for someone else to book appointments or request prescriptions for them. It may help a carer understand and help to manage their health.
• Online access for the proxy to allow a proxy to do one or more of the following: Book and cancel appointments, Order repeat prescriptions.

Security

• Patients must protect their login details so that nobody else can gain access to their record.
• Passwords should be easy to remember or stored in a safe place, such as an encrypted password app. They should not be based on something that is easy to guess.
• If you lose the details or suspect that someone else has seen them, you should change their password immediately and inform the practice.
• Use a password, PIN or fingerprint or face recognition system to protect access to a private computer, tablet or smartphone that they use to access their online access
• Log out of their browser when they have finished using online access, especially if they have used a public computer.
• Ensure that nobody can see your record on the screen over their shoulder while they are accessing their GP online account.
• Take precautions to avoid cyberattack, using antivirus software, an effective firewall and safe internet browsing whenever possible.
• The patient must keep and dispose of all information that they download or print from their record securely.
• People with visual impairment, who use audio electronic readers need to be careful to avoid being overheard, especially in public places.

Your Record

• Your record may contain things that the you are not expecting. There are several reasons why this may happen. You should inform the practice if there is any information in your record that you think is wrong or find upsetting.
• This may happen if you have forgotten the event in your record, if there is an error in the record, if you fail to understand a medical term that is synonymous with a lay term that they know (e.g. acute myocardial infarction instead of heart attack), if you disagree with a diagnosis or if incorrect information has been added to the record by the practice, or your previous practice and has persisted through the transfer from the previous practice (GP2GP).
• The record may also contain confidential third party information that has not been spotted and redacted in the check carried out before you registered.
• If any of these situations arise, you should let the practice know about it. The practice will be keen to listen and discuss the matter with you as soon it is possible to arrange an appointment. The practice may explain the information, redact or remove the data; however, patients cannot demand that an item they disagree with is removed from the record.
• If the patient has been able to see confidential information about another person, the practice will inform the other person as soon as possible.

Safeguarding

• Patients may be coerced unwillingly into allowing other people to have access to their online records. Even when they have shared their login details willingly or arranged for formal proxy access where the other person has their own personal log in details, online access may be misused or abused.
• If the practice suspects that you have been coerced to allow another person to access their online record against your wishes, it is best refuse to allow proxy access until the suspicion has been clarified.
• If you are worried that this might happen in the future or have experienced coercion, a failure to respect your privacy or misuse of the system, you should discuss it with the practice immediately. The practice may switch off access until the matter is resolved if that is a safe option. The practice may redact data if there is something that the patient is keen to keep private.

Carers

If the patient has employed a carer and wants to remove their access when they no longer employ them, proxy access can be easily withdrawn. The patient may also limit the online access to just booking appointments or requesting prescriptions, even if the patient has full record access. There may also be an audit trail accessible to the practice or the patient of who has accessed the patient’s record if the GP system has this functionality. It is safer to restrict proxy access to specific individuals, rather than a group or organisation. If an individual with their own login details leaves the organisation their access will be switched off without interfering with others’ access and the audit trail will always be clear about who has had access to the patient’s records.

Capacity

Some patients lack the capacity to choose or consent to a third person acting as their proxy, but the practice may agree to a carer having proxy access in the absence of informed consent by the patient if it is clearly in the patients best interest. An example is a close family member with Power of Attorney for Health.

There is a new Central NHS Computer System called the Summary Care Record (SCR). It is an electronic record which contains information about the medicines you take, allergies you suffer from and any bad reactions to medicines you have had.