Main Privacy Notice

We keep data on you relating to;

• who you are
• where you live
• what you do
• your family
• possibly your friends
• your employers
• your lifestyle
• your problems and diagnoses
• the reasons you seek help
• your appointments
• where you are seen
• when you are seen and who by
• referrals to specialists and other healthcare providers
• tests carried out here and in other places
• investigations and scans
• treatments and outcomes of treatments
• your treatment history
• the observations and opinions of other healthcare workers, within and without the NHS
• comments and aide memoires reasonably made by healthcare professionals who are appropriately involved in your health care

When registering for NHS care, all patients who receive NHS care are registered on a national database, the database is held by NHS Digital, a national organisation which has legal responsibilities to collect NHS data.

If your health needs require care from others elsewhere / outside our services, we will exchange with them whatever information about you that is necessary for them to provide that care. When you contact healthcare providers outside our services but within the NHS it is usual for them to send us information relating to that encounter. We will retain part or all those reports. Normally we will receive equivalent reports of contacts you have with non-NHS services, but this is not always the case.

Your consent to this sharing of data, within our services and with those others outside our services is assumed and is allowed by the Law.

People who have access to your information will only normally have access to that which they need to fulfil their roles, for instance administration staff will normally only see your name, address, contact details, appointment history and registration details in order to book appointments. Nurses will normally have access to your immunisation, treatment, significant active and important past histories, your allergies and relevant recent contacts. GPs will normally have access to everything in your record.

You have the right to object to our sharing your data in these circumstances, but we have an overriding responsibility to do what is in your best interests.

We undertake Data Protection Impact Assessments as needed and copies of these are available on request to our Data Protection Officer.

We are required by the current data protection laws to provide you with the information in the following 9 subsections.

Data controller contact details

West Kent Primary Care C/O Hospice in the Weald, Maidstone Road, Pembury, TN2 4TA or westkentprimarycare.federation@nhs.net

West Kent Primary Care’s Information Governance Policy is available to view on request to the Data Controller.

Data Protection Officer contact details

For West Kent Primary Care Head Office and Non-Practice Functions: Richard Newell (Your-DPO) contactable via West Kent Primary Care Head Office Tel: 01892 481821

Our Practices: NHS Kent and Medway, DPO support team, Unit A, Compass Centre North, Pembroke Road, Chatham Maritime, ME4 4YH  / 01634 335020 / kmccg.kmccg.ig@nhs.net

Purpose of processing

Direct Care is care delivered to the individual alone, most of which is provided in the surgery. After a patient agrees to a referral for direct care elsewhere, such as a referral to a specialist in a hospital, necessary and relevant information about the patient, their circumstances and their problem will need to be shared with the other healthcare workers, such as specialist, therapists, technicians etc. The information that is shared is to enable the other healthcare workers to provide the most appropriate advice, investigations, treatments, therapies and or care.

Lawful basis for processing

The processing of personal data in the delivery of direct care and for providers’ administrative purposes in our practices, services and in support of direct care elsewhere is supported under the following Article 6 and 9 conditions of the UK General Data Protection Regulation:

Article 6(1)(e) ‘…necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority…’.Article 9(2)(h) ‘necessary for the purposes of preventative or occupational medicine for the assessment of the working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services…”

We will also recognise your rights established under UK case law collectively known as the “Common Law Duty of Confidentiality”.

Categories of recipients of the processed data

The data will be shared with healthcare professionals and support staff (See ‘Services’ section of our website for full list of our GP practices) and at hospitals, diagnostic and treatment centres who contribute to your personal care.

Rights to object

You have the right to object to some or all the information being processed. Please contact the Data Controller or the Information Governance Lead. You should be aware that this is a right to raise an objection, that is not the same as having an absolute right to have your wishes granted in every circumstance.

Right to access and correct

You have the right to access the data that is being shared, this is known as a Data Subject Access Request and to to this please contact us to discuss, and have any inaccuracies corrected. There is no right to have accurate medical records deleted except when ordered by a court of Law.

Retention period

The data will be retained in line with the law and national guidance.

Right to complain

You have the right to complain about Data breaches to the Information Commissioner’s Office or calling their helpline Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (national rate).

West Kent Primary Care is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office for data protection purposes (registration number ZA527953).

Data choice

Information about your health and care helps us to improve your individual care, speed up diagnosis, plan your local services and research new treatments. The NHS is committed to keeping patient information safe and always being clear about how it is used.

Information about your individual care such as treatment and diagnosis is collected about you whenever you use health and care services. It is also used to help us and other organisations for research and planning such as research into new treatments, deciding where to put GP clinics and planning for the number of doctors and nurses in your local hospital. It is only used in this way when there is a clear legal basis to use the information to help improve health and care for you, your family and future generations.

Wherever possible, we try to use data that does not identify you, but sometimes it is necessary to use your confidential patient information.

You do not need to do anything if you are happy about how your information is used. If you do not want your confidential patient information to be used for research and planning, you can choose to opt out securely online or through a telephone service. You can change your mind about your choice at any time.

Choosing to opt out will not affect how your information is used to support your care and treatment.

If you are happy for your confidential patient data to be used for research and planning, you do not need to do anything. To find out more about the benefits of data sharing, how it is protected, or to make a change/opt out choice visit the NHS you data matters page. 

* “Common Law Duty of Confidentiality”, common law is not written out in one document like an Act of Parliament. It is a form of law based on previous court cases decided by judges; hence, it is also referred to as ‘judge-made’ or case law. The law is applied by reference to those previous cases, so common law is also said to be based on precedent.

The general position is that if information is given in circumstances where it is expected that a duty of confidence applies, that information cannot normally be disclosed without the information provider’s consent.

In practice, this means that all patient 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. It is irrelevant how old the patient is or what the state of their mental health is; the duty still applies.

Three circumstances making disclosure of confidential information lawful are:

• where the individual to whom the information relates has consented.
• where disclosure is in the public interest; and
• where there is a legal duty to do so, for example a court order.

Cookies Policy

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit to distinguish you from other users of the site. At the current time, West Kent Primary Care do not use any cookies in running its website.  If these are used in the future, you will clearly be made aware of this and will have the opportunity to consent to the use of these cookies when you first access the site.

Changes to our privacy policy

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page, so please check from time to time to see if there are any changes.

Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy or about the way we use your personal information are welcomed and should be addressed to westkentprimarycare.federation@nhs.net or 01892 481821.