Data sharing Policy

National data opt-out

You can decide if health and care information that could identify you is used for research and planning.

You can choose whether your confidential patient information is used for research and planning. To find out more, visit nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters.

You do not need to do anything if you are happy about how your confidential patient information is used. You can change your choice at any time.

You can also tell us if you do not want your confidential patient information held in your medical record to be used for purposes other than your individual care. This is commonly called a type 1 opt-out. This opt-out request can be only recorded by us. Please ask at reception.

Your data matters to the NHS, please click here for more information.

How the NHS and care services use your information

We are one of many organisations working in the health and care system to improve care for patients and the public.

Whenever you use a health or care service, such as attending Accident & Emergency or using Community Care services, important information about you is collected in a patient record for that service. Collecting this information helps to ensure you get the best possible care and treatment.

The information collected about you when you use these services can also be used and provided to other organisations for purposes beyond your individual care, for instance to help with:

• improving the quality and standards of care provided
• research into the development of new treatments
• preventing illness and diseases
• monitoring safety
• planning services

This may only take place when there is a clear legal basis to use this information. All these uses help to provide better health and care for you, your family and future generations. Confidential patient information about your health and care is only used like this where allowed by law.

Most of the time, anonymised data is used for research and planning so that you cannot be identified in which case your confidential patient information isn’t needed.

You have a choice about whether you want your confidential patient information to be used in this way. If you are happy with this use of information you do not need to do anything. If you do choose to opt out your confidential patient information will still be used to support your individual care.

To find out more or to register your choice to opt out, please visit www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters.  On this web page you will:

• See what is meant by confidential patient information
• Find examples of when confidential patient information is used for individual care and examples of when it is used for purposes beyond individual care
• Find out more about the benefits of sharing data
• Understand more about who uses the data
• Find out how your data is protected
• Be able to access the system to view, set or change your opt-out setting
• Find the contact telephone number if you want to know any more or to set/change your opt-out by phone
• See the situations where the opt-out will not apply

You can also find out more about how patient information is used at:

https://www.hra.nhs.uk/information-about-patients/ (which covers health and care research); and

https://understandingpatientdata.org.uk/what-you-need-know (which covers how and why patient information is used, the safeguards and how decisions are made)

You can change your mind about your choice at any time.

Data being used or shared for purposes beyond individual care does not include your data being shared with insurance companies or used for marketing purposes and data would only be used in this way with your specific agreement.

Applying the patient opt-out to Data Extraction

The national data opt-out was introduced to give patients a choice on how their confidential patient information is used for purposes beyond their individual care.

The information that the opt-out applies to is special category data as it includes information about a patient’s health care and/or treatment that has been collected as part of the care we provide for the patient.

Patients can set or change their national data opt-out choice using an online or contact centre service. When a patient sets a national data opt-out it is in held in a repository on the NHS Spine against the patient’s NHS number.

In accordance with the patient’s wishes and national data opt-out policy, as a health and care organisation located in England, we are required to apply national data opt-outs when applicable to a use or disclosure of confidential patient information (CPI) for purposes other than the patient’s care or treatment.

Applying the opt-out to a data use/disclosure requires that we check, by using the NHS numbers of patients, whether a patient has registered an opt-out before the data is used/disclosed.

To do this a separate list of the NHS numbers in the data that is going to be used/disclosed needs to be created. The list of NHS numbers is then submitted to the Check for National Data Opt-outs service via the secure Message Exchange for Social Care and Health (MESH) messaging service. The Check for National Data Opt-outs service is an external service provided by NHS Digital. The service checks the list of NHS Numbers against a list of opt-outs created from the repository on the NHS Spine, where a match is found it removes the NHS number from the list and then returns an updated list of NHS numbers (with opt-outs removed) back to us via MESH.

We then match the updated list of NHS numbers against our original set of data that was going to be used/disclosed and remove the entire record for those patient records where the NHS numbers match. This creates a ‘cleaned’ set of data with opt-outs applied that we can then use/disclose.”

As we are using a GP system supplied by EMIS (EMIS Web), to create data to be disclosed then the processing described above will be carried out automatically by the system once we confirm via the system whether national data opt-outs need to be applied.

Your Information, Your Rights

Being transparent and providing accessible information to patients about how we will use your personal information is a key element of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the EU General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

The following notice reminds you of your rights in respect of the above legislation and how your GP Practice will use your information for lawful purposes in order to deliver your care and the effective management of the local NHS system.

This notice reflects how we use information for:

• The management of patient records;
• Communication concerning your clinical, social and supported care;
• Ensuring the quality of your care and the best clinical outcomes are achieved through clinical audit and retrospective review;
• Participation in health and social care research; and
• The management and clinical planning of services to ensure that appropriate care is in place for our patients today and in the future.

For more information, visit www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters