Confidentiality Issues
How we use medical information
What we record
Information about you, your medical
treatment, and family background may be recorded, either on paper or in computer
files, as part of providing you with health services.
This information is vital to the proper
operation of the NHS, and is needed to give you and others the best possible
healthcare.
What you can do
Please read the rest of this page in order
to better understand how we use medical information about you. If you would
like further information, then see the contacts at the end of the page.
You have choices on how we use your
personal information, but will need to ask
for the appropriate documentation.
How we use your information:
Doctors need to make notes about any
diagnosis, test results, treatments including drugs prescriptions, and other
information that you may provide, that seems relevant to the treatment of your
condition. We need to keep this information in order to provide proper care for
you (for later treatment, or if you should be seen by another doctor) and to
allow others to check the treatment that you have received. Nurses and other
health professionals also need access to these records, and will add their own
notes, as part of the overall healthcare provision.
Secretaries, receptionists, and other
clerical staff need access to some of your records in order to do
administrative tasks, such as: booking appointments and communicating with you
and other parts of the NHS.
Your doctor may also need to provide
information under certain Acts of Parliament (e.g. the Communicable Diseases
Act 1978 - which is necessary to prevent the outbreak of certain highly
contagious diseases) to protect you and others.
The Health Service
In order to manage the NHS, some
restricted information concerning treatments, drugs prescribed, numbers of
patients seen, etc. is needed, and hospitals and general practices must provide
this information in returns to various central bodies.
This information has personal details such
as your name and address removed wherever possible.
It is necessary from time to time to check
these returns to prevent fraud as part of the NHS’s statutory obligations. This
may result in your being contacted by an NHS Fraud Office to see if you will
consent to your records being checked. Only if you do consent will the auditors
be allowed to access your records.
Teaching Clinicians
Some medical files are needed to teach
student clinicians about rare cases. Without such materials, new doctors and
nurses would be not be properly prepared to treat you.
Planning
We need to be able to plan ahead about
treatments, patient numbers, etc., but this uses summary information, not
personal information.
Medical Research
Some medical research will require your
direct involvement (especially if taking part in clinical trials) in which case
the circumstances will be fully explained to you, and your express consent required. If you do not consent, then you
will not be included in the trial.
Other researchers only require access to medical statistics, and can greatly improve our understanding of health, and how to treat patients more effectively. Generally, researchers only need information about groups of people, so that no individual information is apparent. In some cases, they need individual records, but wherever we can we will provide these in an ‘anonymised’ form (so individuals cannot be identified).
Sometimes, researchers need access to
individual medical files. We will contact you first for your consent (and
before this the researchers must present their case before an Ethics Committee
to check that their research is appropriate and worthwhile).
Rarely, it may not be practicable (or even
possible) to contact individuals for their consent, in which case the
researchers must make their case before a Confidentiality Committee to show that there is enough benefit to
the public at large to justify this.
Managing the data
We need to be able to move electronic
information from system to system, extracting the data and modifying it for the
next system. Occasionally, tests will need to be made on the data to check that
it has been transferred correctly. This will only be done under carefully
controlled
conditions and all employees and
contractors will be under strict contractual obligations to protect your
confidentiality.
Other Agencies
The NHS is not the only government service
to provide you with care, and it will be necessary for us to provide other
agencies with appropriate information, but only with your consent (or that of
your relatives if you are too ill).
How we protect your information
The sensitivity of patient information is
well understood within the NHS. All staff and contractors are trained to
respect their duty of confidentiality to you, and have this written in their
contracts.
We keep paper and electronic records
securely to prevent unauthorised access or misuse.
Wherever practicable, we also remove
references to personal details such as your name and address, and often
restrict it further to reduce the chances of anyone identifying a record as
relating to you.
What else?
You can have a say in how the NHS uses information about you. If
you want to find out more or have any concerns, the please phone NHS Direct on 08454647. You can ask for a booklet
giving
more detail, and further information is available on the NHS web-site: www.nhs.uk\confidentiality