Access to Records
In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Access to Health Records Act, patients may request to see their medical records. Such requests should be made through the practice manager and may be subject to an administration charge. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.
Chaperones
All patients are entitled to have a chaperone present for any consultation. Please request this at the time of booking or speak to your GP.
Complaints
We make every effort to give the best service possible to everyone who attends our practice.
However, we are aware that things can go wrong resulting in a patient feeling that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, we would wish for the matter to be settled as quickly, and as amicably, as possible.
To pursue a complaint please complete the feedback form or contact the practice manager who will deal with your concerns appropriately. Further written information is available regarding the complaints procedure from reception.
Confidentiality & Medical Records
The practice complies with data protection and access to medical records legislation. Identifiable information about you will be shared with others in the following circumstances:
- To provide further medical treatment for you e.g. from district nurses and hospital services.
- To help you get other services e.g. from the social work department. This requires your consent.
- When we have a duty to others e.g. in child protection cases anonymised patient information will also be used at local and national level to help the Health Board and Government plan services e.g. for diabetic care.
If you do not wish anonymous information about you to be used in such a way please let us know with our contact form.
Reception and administration staff require access to your medical records in order to do their jobs. These members of staff are bound by the same rules of confidentiality as the medical staff.
Disabled Access
The surgery has suitable access for wheelchairs and disabled toilets in the waiting room.
Freedom of Information
Information about the General Practitioners and the practice required for disclosure under this act can be made available to the public. All requests for such information should be made to the practice manager.
GP Net Earnings
All GP practices are required to declare the mean earnings (e.g. average pay) for GPs working to deliver NHS services to patients at each practice. However, it should be noted that the prescribed method for calculating earnings is potentially misleading because it takes no account of how much time doctors spend working in the practice and should not be used to form any judgement about GP earnings, nor make any comparison with any other practice.
The average pay for GPs working in Plumbridge Medical centre in the last financial year 2018/19 was £52,490 before Tax and National Insurance.
- Number of full time GPs – 1
- Number of part time GPs – 2
Home Visits
Whilst we encourage our patients to come to the surgery, where we have the proper equipment and facilities available, we do appreciate this is not always possible. In this respect, if you do need a home visit, you can help us by calling reception on 020 8692 7591 before 12:30.
You may only request a home visit if you are housebound or are too ill to visit the practice. Your GP will only visit you at home if they think that your medical condition requires it and will also decide how urgently a visit is needed. Please bear this in mind and be prepared to provide suitable details to enable the doctor to schedule house calls.
You can also be visited at home by a community nurse if you are referred by your GP. You should also be visited at home by a health visitor if you have recently had a baby or if you are newly registered with a GP and have a child under five years.
Non-NHS Services
Some services provided are not covered under our contract with the NHS and therefore attract charges. Examples include the following:
- Medicals for pre-employment, sports and driving requirements (HGV, PSV etc.)
- Insurance claim forms
- Passport signing
- Prescriptions for taking medication abroad
- Private sick notes
- Vaccination certificates
The fees charged are based on the British Medical Association (BMA) suggested scales and our reception staff will be happy to advise you about them along with appointment availability.
Privacy Notice
This privacy notice explains why the GP practice collects information about you and how that information may be used.
This practice also keeps medical records confidential and complies with the General Data Protection Regulation.
Health care professionals who provide you with care maintain records about your health and any treatment or care you have received previously (e.g. NHS Trust, GP Surgery, Walk-in clinic, etc.). 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 GP Practice hold about you may include the following information:
- Details about you, such as your name, address, carers, legal representatives and next of kin 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.
Risk Stratification
Risk stratification 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 intervention. Information about you is collected from a number of sources including NHS Trusts and from this GP practice. A risk score is then arrived at through an analysis of your de-identified information using managed software and is only provided back to your GP as data controller in an identifiable form. Risk stratification 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 by discussing your treatment or care plan with other members of the multi-disciplinary team.
Please note that you have the right to opt out of your data being used in this way.
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.
How do we maintain the confidentiality of your records?
We are committed to protecting your privacy and will only use information collected lawfully in accordance with:
- Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation 2016
- Human Rights Act 1998
- Common Law Duty of Confidentiality
- Health and Social Care Act 2012
- NHS Codes of Confidentiality, Information Security and Records Management
Every member of staff who works for an NHS organisation has a legal obligation to keep information about you confidential.
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.
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.
If you need to update your details, you can do so online by completing the Change Personal Details Page.
Notification
The Data Protection Act 2018 requires organisations to register a notification with the Information Commissioner to describe the purposes for which they process personal and sensitive information.
This information is publicly available on the Information Commissioners Office website www.ico.org.uk
The practice is registered with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO).
Other important information about how your information is used to provide you with healthcare.
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 NHS Number but it does not hold information about the care you receive.
The database is held by NHS Digital, a national organisation which has legal responsibilities to collect NHS data.
More information can be found at: www.digital.nhs.uk or by calling: 0300 303 5678
Identifying patients who might be at risk of certain diseases
Your medical records will be searched by a computer programme so that we can identify patients who might be at high risk from certain diseases such as heart disease or unplanned admissions to hospital.
This means we can offer patients additional care or support as early as possible. This process will involve linking information from your GP record with information from other health or social care services you have used.
Information which identifies you will only be seen by this practice. More information can be found at: www.sollis.co.uk.
Safeguarding
Sometimes we need to share information so that other people, including healthcare staff, children or others with safeguarding needs, are protected from risk of harm.
These circumstances are rare. We do not need your consent or agreement to do this. Please ask at reception for further information.
How we Handle Your Information
We are required by law to provide you with the following information about how we handle your information:
| Data Controller contact details
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Dr P Krishnarajah
Plumbridge Medical Centre Tel: 020 869 27591 |
| Data Protection Officer contact details
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Tahmina Sharmeen (Practice Manager)
Plumbridge Medical Centre Tel: 0208 6927591 |
| Purpose of the processing
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To give direct health or social care to individual patients.
For example, when a patient agrees to a referral for direct care, such as to a hospital, relevant information about the patient will be shared with the other healthcare staff to enable them to give appropriate advice, investigations, treatments and/or care. To check and review the quality of care. (This is called audit and clinical governance). |
| Lawful basis for processing
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These purposes are supported under the following sections of the GDPR:
Article 6(1)(e) ‘…necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority…’; and 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…” Healthcare staff will also respect and comply with their obligations under the common law duty of confidence. |
| Who are our partner organisations?
Recipient or categories of recipients of the processed data
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We may also have to share relevant information from your medical record, subject to strict agreements on how it will be used, with the following organisations;
You have the right to object to information being shared for your own care. Please speak to the practice if you wish to object. You also have the right to have any mistakes or errors corrected. 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. 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. |
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Rights to object
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You have the right to object to information being shared between those who are providing you with direct care.
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Right to access and correct |
You have a right under the Data Protection Act 2018 to request access to view or to obtain copies of what information the surgery holds about you and to have it amended should it be inaccurate. In order to request this, you need to do the following:
You also have the right to have any errors or mistakes corrected. Please speak to a member of staff or contact us via our website
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| Retention period
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GP medical records will be kept in line with the law and national guidance. Information on how long records are kept can be found in the Records Management Code of Practice for Health and Social Care 2016.
Alternatively, you can ask the practice for more information. |
| Right to complain
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If you are still unhappy following a review by the Practice you can then complain to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). If you wish to complain, please visit: www.ico.org.uk/global/contact-us or call the helpline on 0303 123 1113. |
| Data we get from other organisations | We receive information about your health from other organisations who are involved in providing you with health and social care. For example, if you go to hospital for treatment or an operation the hospital will send us a letter to let us know what happens. This means your GP medical record is kept up-to date when you receive care from other parts of the health service. |
Objections/Complaints
Should you have any concerns about how your information is managed at the GP, please complete the Feedback and Complaints Form or contact the GP practice manager Tahmina Sharmeen. If you are still unhappy following a review by the GP practice, you can then complain to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) via their website (www.ico.gov.uk).
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.
Sickness Certificates
You do not require a doctor’s sickness certificate for any illness lasting seven days or less. Your employer may however require you to complete a self-certification form (SC2) which is available from your employer or on the Employee’s statement of sickness to claim Statutory Sick Pay page on the Gov.uk website.
Evidence that you are sick
If you are sick for more than seven days, your employer can ask you to give them some form of medical evidence to support payment of SSP (statutory sick pay).
It is up to your employer to decide whether you are incapable of work. A medical certificate, now called a ‘Statement of Fitness for Work’ (see below) from your doctor is strong evidence that you are sick and would normally be accepted, unless there is evidence to prove otherwise.
You could also provide evidence from someone who is not a medical practitioner, e.g. a dentist. Your employer will decide whether or not this evidence is acceptable. If your employer has any doubts, they may still ask for a medical certificate from your GP.
Statement of Fitness for Work – ’Fit Note’
The ‘fit note’ was introduced on 6 April 2010. With your employer’s support, the note will help you return to work sooner by providing more information about the effects of your illness or injury.
For more information see the DirectGov Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) page (where this information was sourced)
Summary Care Record
There is a 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.
Why do I need a Summary Care Record?
Storing information in one place makes it easier for healthcare staff to treat you in an emergency, or when your GP practice is closed.
This information could make a difference to how a doctor decides to care for you, for example which medicines they choose to prescribe for you.
Who can see it?
Only healthcare staff involved in your care can see your Summary Care Record.
How do I know if I have one?
Over half of the population of England now have a Summary Care Record. You can find out whether Summary Care Records have come to your area by asking the practice using our online form.
Do I have to have one?
No, it is not compulsory. If you choose to opt out of the scheme, then you will need to complete a form and bring it along to the surgery. You can opt out online by completing the Summary Care Record Opt Out form.
More Information
For further information visit the NHS Care records website.
Test Results
When you attend for a test of any kind you will be told how long you should expect to wait for the results. Please bear this in mind and call the surgery between 13:00-15:00 once sufficient time has elapsed.
Our reception staff are not qualified to comment on results therefore it is your responsibility to check them and make any necessary follow-up appointment with the doctor.
We have a strict policy regarding confidentiality and data protection. In this respect we will only give out results to the person they relate to unless that person has given prior permission for their release or if they are not capable of understanding them.
Zero Tolerance
The NHS operate a zero tolerance policy with regard to violence and abuse and the practice has the right to remove violent patients from the list with immediate effect in order to safeguard practice staff, patients and other persons.
Violence in this context includes actual or threatened physical violence or verbal abuse which leads to fear for a person’s safety. In this situation we will notify the patient in writing of their removal from the list and record in the patient’s medical records the fact of the removal and the circumstances leading to it.