GDPR

GPDR General data protection regulation

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a new law that determines how your personal data is processed and kept safe, and the legal rights that you have in relation to your own data.  The regulation applies from 25 May 2018, and will apply even after the UK leaves the EU.

The GDPR is similar to the Data Protection Act (DPA) 1998 (which the practice already complies with), but strengthens many of the DPA’s principles. The main changes are: 

• Practices must comply with subject access requests 

• Where we need your consent to process data, this consent must be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous 

• There are new, special protections for patient data 

• The Information Commissioner’s Office must be notified within 72 hours of a data breach 

• Higher fines for data breaches – up to 20 million euros 

What is ‘Patient Data’? 

Patient data is information that relates to a single person, such as his/her diagnosis, name, age, earlier medical history etc 

What GDPR will mean for patients  The GDPR sets out the key principles about processing personal data, for staff or patients

• Data must be processed lawfully, fairly and transparently  

• It must be collected for specific, explicit and legitimate purposes  

• It must be limited to what is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed Information must be accurate and kept up to date  

• Data must be held securely  

• It can only be retained for as long as is necessary for the reasons it was collected

There are also stronger rights for patients regarding the information that practices hold about them. These include:

• Being informed about how their data is used  

• Patients to have access to their own data  

• Patients can ask to have incorrect information changed  

• Restrict how their data is used  

• Move their patient data from one health organisation to another  

• The right to object to their patient information being processed [in certain circumstances)

What is Consent? 

Consent is permission from a patient – an individual’s consent is defined as “any freely given specific and informed indication of his/her wishes by which the data subject signifies his/her agreement to personal data relating to him/her being processed.” 

The changes in GDPR mean that we must get explicit permission from patients when using their data. This is to protect your right to privacy, and we may ask you to provide consent to do certain things, like contact you or record certain information about you for your clinical records. Individuals also have the right to withdraw their consent at any time 

Subject Access Request

• We can only provide you with information we hold. This will mostly consist of data that has been entered into the GP record by West Green Surgery or GP practices that you have previously been registered with (provided with have been sent these records).

• If you wish to obtain the reports or images for scans or investigations organised by hospital departments / clinics please make a separate Subject Access Request directly to the Hospital in question. Typically the only information sent to Practices after a hospital attendance is an outpatient clinic letter or discharge summary. These are typically also sent to or provided to the patient therefore we are unlikely to hold additional information relating to activity occurring outside of the Practice.

• If there is significant third party information held within your medical record we are legally required to redact this information.

• We are only able to provide information through the “Patient Access” if it is already currently part of your electronic medical record. If the record contains third party information it may not be possible to provide the record via Patient Records Access App like NHS App/Patient Access- in this situation a PDF of the redacted dataset will be sent via e-mail (even if the preference was for this information to be accessed through channel)

• We are required to not share information that can potentially cause harm to a patient or others.

• We are not able to retrospectively change or remove data already held within the medical record unless it is obviously incorrect (e.g. if it related to a different patient). Diagnoses are by definition an opinion. In cases where a diagnosis has changed or a patient disagrees with a diagnosis the Information Commissioner’s Office confirms that the “right to rectification” does not apply. The medical record has to be a contemporaneous record of opinion. Therefore if a diagnosis has changed we have to retain both the original diagnosis and the subsequent correction / change. When a patient disagrees with a recorded entry we can record (in the medical record) this disagreement however it is not possible to amend an entry unless (as above) it is clearly false.

• We will normally respond to a Subject Access Request within one calendar month or receipt. This period commences once we have received the SAR and have confirmed the identity and authority of the applicant.

• We may have to seek further information from the application to clarify details relating to the specific information requested. During this time the one calendar month response time period will be suspended until the required information is received.

• To complete a subject access request please attend reception with 2 forms of identification (e.g passport and utility bill). You will be asked to complete a request form

Please click on the hyperlink to access our privacy notice