Privacy notice

As data controllers, GPs have fair processing responsibilities under the Data Protection Act and GDPR law 2018. This means ensuring that your personal confidential data (PCD) is handled in ways that are safe, transparent and what you would reasonably expect. Please find documents and links below.

We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. To do this we keep records about you, your health and the care we have provided or plan to provide to you. This policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure. If you have any questions regarding this privacy policy please contact us directly.

Introduction

• This is a notice to inform you of our policy about all information that we record about you. It sets out the conditions under which we may process any information that we collect from you, or that you provide to us. It covers information that could identify you (“personal information”) and information that could not. In the context of the law and this notice, “process” means collect, store, transfer, use or otherwise act on information.
• We take seriously the protection of your privacy and confidentiality. We understand that all visitors to our website are entitled to know that their personal data will not be used for any purpose unintended by them, and will not accidentally fall into the hands of a third party.
• We undertake to preserve the confidentiality of all information you provide to us, and hope that you reciprocate.
• Our policy complies with UK law accordingly implemented, including that required by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
• The law requires us to tell you about your rights and our obligations to you in regards to the processing and control of your personal data. We do this now, by requesting that you read the information provided at knowyourprivacyrights.org
• Except as set out below, we do not share, or sell, or disclose to a third party, any information collected through our website.

Registering for NHS care

• All patients who receive NHS care are registered on a national database.

• This database holds your name, address, date of birth and CHI (Community Health Index) number but it does not hold information about the care you receive.

• The database is held by NHS National Services Scotland, which has legal responsibilities to collect NHS data

• More information can be found at: NHS National Services Scotland .

The bases on which we process information about you

The law requires us to determine under which of six defined bases we process different categories of your personal information, and to notify you of the basis for each category. If a basis on which we process your personal information is no longer relevant then we shall immediately stop processing your data. If the basis changes then if required by law we shall notify you of the change and of any new basis under which we have determined that we can continue to process your information.

Information we process because we have a contractual obligation with you

When you join our practice, receive medical services from us, or otherwise agree to our terms and conditions, a contract is formed between you and us.

In order to carry out our obligations under that contract we must process the information you give us. Some of this information may be personal information.

We may use it in order to:

• verify your identity for security purposes
• provide you with our services
• provide you with suggestions and advice and how to obtain the most from our service.

We process this information on the basis there is a contract between us, or that you have requested we use the information before we enter into a legal contract.

Additionally, we may aggregate this information in a general way and use it to provide class information, for example to monitor our performance with respect to a particular service we provide. If we use it for this purpose, you as an individual will not be personally identifiable.

We shall continue to process this information until the contract between us ends or is terminated by either party under the terms of the contract.

Information we process with your consent

Through certain actions when otherwise there is no contractual relationship between us, such as when you browse our website or ask us to provide you with more information about our business, including job opportunities and our services, you provide your consent to us to process information that may be personal information.

Wherever possible, we aim to obtain your explicit consent to process this information, for example, by asking you to agree to our use of cookies.

Sometimes you might give your consent implicitly, such as when you send us a message by e-mail to which you would reasonably expect us to reply.

Except where you have consented to our use of your information for a specific purpose, we do not use your information in any way that would identify you personally. We may aggregate it in a general way and use it to provide class information, for example to monitor the performance of a particular page on our website.

We continue to process your information on this basis until you withdraw your consent or it can be reasonably assumed that your consent no longer exists.

You may withdraw your consent at any time by instructing us in writing. However, if you do so, you may not be able to use our website or our services further.

Information we process for the purposes of legitimate interests

We may process information on the basis there is a legitimate interest, either to you or to us, of doing so.

Where we process your information on this basis, we do after having given careful consideration to:

• whether the same objective could be achieved through other means
• whether processing (or not processing) might cause you harm
• whether you would expect us to process your data, and whether you would, in the round, consider it reasonable to do so

For example, we may process your data on this basis for the purposes of:

• record-keeping for the proper and necessary administration of our business
• responding to unsolicited communication from you to which we believe you would expect a response
• protecting and asserting the legal rights of any party
• insuring against or obtaining professional advice that is required to manage business or professional risk
• protecting your interests where we believe we have a duty to do so

Information we process because we have a legal obligation

We are subject to the law like everyone else. Sometimes, we must process your information in order to comply with a statutory obligation.

For example, we may be required to give information to legal authorities if they so request or if they have the proper authorisation such as a search warrant or court order.

This may include your personal information.

Information we process may be categorised as special category data

Special category data is personal data which the GDPR says is more sensitive, and so needs more protection. For example information about an individuals:

• race
• ethnic origin
• health
• sex life or
• sexual orientation.

We may process this information for the purposes of medical diagnosis, provision of health treatment and management of health of our patients and the community we serve.

Local Information Sharing

Your GP electronic patient record is held securely and confidentially on an electronic system managed by your registered GP practice. If you require attention from a local health or care professional outside of your usual practice services, such as in an Evening and Weekend GP Out Of Hours, Emergency Department, Minor Injury Unit or Out Of Hours service, the professionals treating you are better able to give you safe and effective care if some of the information from your GP record is available to them.

Where available, this information can be shared electronically with other local healthcare providers via a secure system designed for this purpose. Depending on the service you are using and your health needs, this may involve the healthcare professional accessing a secure system that enables them to view parts of your GP electronic patient record or a secure system that enables them to view your full GP electronic patient record .

In all cases, your information is only accessed and used by authorised staff who are involved in providing or supporting your direct care. Your permission will be asked before the information is accessed, other than in exceptional circumstances (e.g. emergencies) if the healthcare professional is unable to ask you and this is deemed to be in your best interests (which will then be logged).

Who Else May Ask to Access Your Information

• The Court can insist that we disclose medical records to them;
• Solicitors often ask for medical reports. These will always be accompanied by your signed consent for us to disclose information. We will not normally release details about other people that are contained in your records (e.g. wife, children parents etc.) unless we also have their consent;
• Social Services – The Benefits Agency and others may require medical reports on you from time to time. These will often be accompanied by your signed consent to disclose information. Failure to co-operate with these agencies can lead to loss of benefit or other support. However, if we have not received your signed consent we will not normally disclose information about you;
• Insurance Companies frequently ask for medical reports on prospective clients. These are always accompanied by your signed consent form. We will only disclose the relevant medical information as per your consent. You have the right, should you request it, to see reports prepared for Insurance Companies or employers before they are sent. We may contact you on receipt of a third party request to discuss your consent and clarify what will be shared.
• If you have any questions on the above points please contact the Practice.

Anyone who receives Information from us is also Under a Legal Duty to Keep it Confidential and Secure

All staff in the Practice sign a confidentiality agreement that explicitly makes clear their duties in relation to personal health information and the consequences of breaching that duty.

Please be aware that your information will be accessed by non-clinical Practice staff in order to perform tasks enabling the functioning of the Practice. These are, but not limited to:

• typing referral letters to hospital consultants or allied health professionals;
• opening letters from hospitals and consultants;
• scanning clinical letters, radiology reports and any other documents not available in electronic format;
• photocopying or printing documents for referral to consultants;
• handling, printing, photocopying and postage of medico legal and insurance reports and of associated documents.

Processing of Prescriptions

We process prescriptions requests on a daily basis. This involves our staff accessing your information held on our computer database, to produce your prescription(s) that you, your carer, nominated person, or pharmacy has requested. Prescriptions can be requested in various methods, by telephone, online via our computer system, by post, in writing, via fax (if available) or in person. Please refer to our prescription procedure for further information. If using the postal service always allow extra time so you do not run out of your medication.

Collection/Uplift of Prescriptions

We will always ask for your details when a prescription uplift request is received this could be your name, date of birth and address, medication you requested, or Community Health Index Number (which uniquely identifies you). This ensures that we can produce your prescription(s) efficiently, and reduces the risk of an incorrect prescription being given to you or your nominated person/carer/pharmacy.

Please allow the allotted time before uplifting your prescription. Prescriptions can be collected/sent via the following methods:

• In person
• Via your nominated choice of person/organisation, this could be your carer, pharmacy, family member or friend (Please be aware if you are not uplifting your own prescription we may ask for proof of Identification from that person before we issue your Prescription, and we may also require a signature for our own records)
• Home delivery service – Some pharmacies may deliver your prescription directly to your home, please check with your local pharmacist if they can provide this service for you.

Risk Prediction

Risk prediction data tools are increasingly being used in the NHS to help determine a person’s risk of suffering a particular condition, preventing an unplanned or (re)admission and identifying a need for preventive information.

Information about you is collected from a number of sources in NHS Scotland including this GP Practice. A risk score is then arrived at through an analysis of your

De-identifiable information by ISD Scotland and is only provided back to your GP’s Data Controller in an identifiable form. Risk prediction enables your GP to focus on preventing ill health and not just the treatment of sickness. If necessary, your GP may be able to offer you additional services.

Scottish Primary Care Information Resource (SPIRE)

NHS Scotland uses information from GP patient records to help plan and improve health and care services in Scotland. You have a choice about the information from your GP records being used in this way. You can opt out from this at any time by contacting the Practice.

Emergency Care Summary (ECS)

Emergency care information such as your name, date of birth, the name of your GP, any medicines which your GP has prescribed, any medicines you are allergic to or react badly to, is shared with Out of Hours as this might be important if you need urgent medical care when the GP surgery is closed.

NHS staff (doctors, nurses, Accident and Emergency department, ambulance control and crews) can look at your ECS if they need to treat you when the surgery is closed. They will ask for your consent before they look at your records.

In an emergency and if you are unconscious, staff may look at your ECS without your agreement to let them give you the best possible care.

Whenever NHS staff looks at your ECS, a record will be kept so we can always check who has looked at your information. If you wish to opt out of ECS please complete the online opt-out form.

Key Information Summary (KIS)

Key information summary (KIS) has been designed to support patients who have complex care needs or long term conditions.

KIS allows important information to be shared with health care professionals in unscheduled care in the NHS 24, A&E, Scottish Ambulance Service, Out of Hours, hospital and pharmacy environments.

Information contained in KIS summary includes, future care plans, medications, allergies, diagnosis, your wishes, carer and next of kin details.

You have the right to say that you do not want Care staff to see ECS/KIS. Please contact the Practice.

Specific uses of information you provide to us

Health care professionals who provide you with care maintain records about your health and any treatment or care you have received previously . These records are used to help to provide you with the best possible healthcare.

NHS health care records may be electronic, on paper or a mixture of both, and we use a combination of working practices and technology to ensure that your information is kept confidential and secure. Records this we hold about you may include the following information;

• Details about you, such as your name, address, carers, legal representatives and emergency contact details
• Any contact the surgery has had with you, such as appointments, clinic visits, emergency appointments, etc.
• Notes and reports about your health
• Details about your treatment and care
• Results of investigations such as laboratory tests, x-rays, etc.
• Relevant information from other health professionals, relatives or those who care for you

To ensure you receive the best possible care, your records are used to facilitate the care you receive. Information held about you may be used to help protect the health of the public and to help us manage the NHS. Information may be used within the GP Practice for clinical audit to monitor the quality of the service provided. Some of this information will be held centrally and used for statistical purposes. Where we do this, we take strict measures to ensure that individual patients cannot be identified.

Sometimes your information may be requested to be used for research purposes – the surgery will always gain your consent before releasing the information for this purpose.

Medicines Management

The Practice may conduct Medicines Management Reviews of medications prescribed to its patients. This service performs a review of prescribed medications to ensure patients receive the most appropriate, up to date and cost effective treatments. This service is provided to practices within our local GP Cluster.

National Registries

National Registries (such as the Learning Disabilities Register) have statutory permission under Section 251 of the NHS Act 2006, to collect and hold service user identifiable information without the need to seek informed consent from each individual service user.

Job application and employment

If you send us information in connection with a job application, we may keep it for up to three years in case we decide to contact you at a later date.

If we employ you, we collect information about you and your work from time to time throughout the period of your employment. This information will be used only for purposes directly relevant to your employment. After your employment has ended, we will keep your file for six years before destroying or deleting it.

Sending a message to our Practice team

When you contact us, whether by telephone, through our website or by e-mail, we collect the data you have given to us in order to reply with the information you need. We record your request and our reply in order to increase the efficiency of our Practice. We keep personally identifiable information associated with your message, such as your name and email address so as to be able to track our communications with you to provide a high quality service.

Safeguarding

The Practice is dedicated to ensuring that the principles and duties of safeguarding adults and children are holistically, consistently and conscientiously applied with the wellbeing of all, at the heart of what we do.

Our legal basis for processing For the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) purposes is: –

Article 6(1)(e) ‘…exercise of official authority…’. 

For the processing of special categories data, the basis is: –

Article 9(2)(b) – ‘processing is necessary for the purposes of carrying out the obligations and exercising specific rights of the controller or of the data subject in the field of employment and social security and social protection law…’

Complaining

When we receive a complaint, we record all the information you have given to us.

We use that information to resolve your complaint.

If your complaint reasonably requires us to contact some other person, we may decide to give to that other person some of the information contained in your complaint. We do this as infrequently as possible, but it is a matter for our sole discretion as to whether we do give information, and if we do, what that information is.

We may also compile statistics showing information obtained from this source to assess the level of service we provide, but not in a way that could identify you or any other person.

Use of information we collect through automated systems when you visit our website

Cookies

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer’s hard drive by your web browser when you visit any website. They allow information gathered on one web page to be stored until it is needed for use on another, allowing a website to provide you with a personalised experience and the website owner with statistics about how you use the website so that it can be improved.

Some cookies may last for a defined period of time, such as one day or until you close your browser. Others last indefinitely.

Your web browser should allow you to delete any you choose. It also should allow you to prevent or limit their use.

Our website uses cookies. They are placed by software that operates on our servers, and by software operated by third parties whose services we use.

If you choose not to use cookies or you prevent their use through your browser settings, you will not be able to use all the functionality of our website.

We use cookies in the following ways:

• to track how you use our website
• to record whether you have seen specific messages we display on our website
• to keep you signed in our site
• to record your answers to surveys and questionnaires on our site while you complete them.

Personal identifiers from your browsing activity

Requests by your web browser to our servers for web pages and other content on our website are recorded.

We record information such as your geographical location, your Internet service provider and your IP address. We also record information about the software you are using to browse our website, such as the type of computer or device and the screen resolution.

We use this information in aggregate to assess the popularity of the webpages on our website and how we perform in providing content to you.

If combined with other information we know about you from previous visits, the data possibly could be used to identify you personally, even if you are not signed in to our website.

Disclosure and sharing of your information

Information we obtain from third parties

We sometimes receive data that is indirectly made up from your personal information from third parties whose services we use. No such information is personally identifiable to you.

Information provided on the understanding that it will be shared with a third party

We will only ever use or pass on information about you if others involved in your care have a genuine need for it. We will not disclose your information to any third party without your permission unless there are exceptional circumstances (i.e. life or death situations), where the law requires information to be passed on and / or in accordance with the new information sharing principle following Dame Fiona Caldicott’s information sharing review (Information to share or not to share) where “The duty to share information can be as important as the duty to protect patient confidentiality.” This means that health and social care professionals should have the confidence to share information in the best interests of their patients within the framework set out by the Caldicott principles. They should be supported by the policies of their employers, regulators and professional bodies.

Who are our partner organisations?

We may also have to share your information, subject to strict agreements on how it will be used, with the following organisations;

• Other NHS Hospitals
• GPs
• Out of Hours Medical Services
• Independent Contractors such as dentists, opticians, pharmacists
• Private Sector Providers
• Voluntary Sector Providers
• Ambulance Trusts
• NHS Scotland
• Social Care Services
• Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC)
• Local Authorities
• Education Services
• Fire and Rescue Services
• Police & Judicial Services
• Voluntary Sector Providers
• Private Sector Providers
• Other ‘data processors’ which you will be informed of

You will be informed who your data will be shared with and in some cases asked for explicit consent for this happen when this is required.

Clinical research

Sometimes your information may be requested to be used for research purposes – we will always ask your permission before releasing your information for this purpose.

We may also use external companies to process personal information, such as for archiving purposes. These companies are bound by contractual agreements to ensure information is kept confidential and secure.

Data may be processed outside the European Union

Our website is hosted in the United Kingdom.

We may also use outsourced services in countries outside the European Union from time to time in other aspects of our business.

Accordingly data obtained within the UK or any other country could be processed outside the European Union.

Access to your personal information

• At any time you may request to review or update personally identifiable information that we hold about you,
• To obtain a copy of any information you may send us a request in writing.
• After receiving the request, we will tell you when we expect to provide you with the information, and whether we require any fee for providing it to you.

Removal of your information

If you wish us to remove personally identifiable information from our website, please get in touch.

This may limit the service we can provide to you.

Verification of your information

When we receive any request to access, edit or delete personal identifiable information we shall first take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting you access or otherwise taking any action. This is important to safeguard your information.

Other matters

Use of our website by children

• If you are under 18, you may use our website only with consent from a parent or guardian
• We collect data about all users of and visitors to these areas regardless of age, and we anticipate that some of those users and visitors will be children.
• Such child users and visitors will inevitably visit other parts of the site and will be subject to whatever on-site information they find, wherever they visit.

How you can complain

If you are happy for your data to be extracted and used for the purposes described in this privacy notice then you do not need to do anything.  If you have any concerns about how your data is shared then please contact the Practice.

• If you are not happy with our privacy policy or if have any complaint then you should tell by writing to us
• If a dispute is not settled then we hope you will agree to attempt to resolve it by engaging in good faith with us in a process of mediation or arbitration.
• If you are in any way dissatisfied about how we process your personal information, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office. This can be done at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

Retention period for personal data

Except as otherwise mentioned in this Privacy Notice, we keep your personal information only for as long as required by us:

• to provide you with the services you have requested
• to comply with other Laws, including for the period demanded by our tax authorities
• to support a claim or defence in Court

In accordance with the NHS Codes of Practice for Records Management, healthcare records will be retained for the patient’s lifetime and 3 years after the patient’s death.

Source: Scottish Government Records Management: NHS Code of Practice(Scotland) Version 2.1

Data Protection Officer

Should you have any data protection questions or concerns, please contact us, addressing your message to our Data Protection Officer at our practice.

Change of Details

It is important that you tell the person treating you if any of your details such as your name or address have changed or if any of your details such as date of birth is incorrect in order for this to be amended. You have a responsibility to inform us of any changes so our records are accurate and up to date for you.

Opt-outs

You have a right to object to your information being shared.  Should you wish to opt out of data collection, please contact a member of staff who will be able to explain how you can opt out and prevent the sharing of your information; this is done by registering a Type 1 opt-out, preventing your information from being shared outside this Practice.

If you have previously opted-out of any data sharing arrangements, your opt-out 1 will continue to be valid.

Compliance with the law

Our privacy policy has been compiled so as to comply with the law of every country or legal jurisdiction in which we aim to do business. If you think it fails to satisfy the law of your jurisdiction, we should like to hear from you.

Further Information

Understanding Patient Data supports better conversations about the uses of health information. Our aim is to explain how and why data can be used for care and research, what’s allowed and what’s not, and how personal information is kept safe. We work with patients, charities and healthcare professionals to champion responsible uses of data.

Review of this privacy policy

We may update this privacy notice from time to time as necessary. The terms that apply to you are those posted here on our website on the day you use our website. We advise you to print a copy for your records.

If you have any question regarding our privacy policy, please contact us.