We need to know your personal, sensitive and confidential data in order to provide you with healthcare services as a General Practice, under the General Data Protection Regulation we will be lawfully using your information in accordance with: –

Article 6, e) processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller;”

Article 9, (h) processing is necessary for the purposes of preventive 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

This Privacy Notice applies to the personal data of our patients and the data you have given us about your carers/family members.

Risk stratification data tools are increasingly being used in the NHS to help determine a person’s risk of suffering a 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 our clinics. A risk score is then arrived at through an analysis of your de-identified information is only provided back to your GP as data controller in an identifiable form. Risk stratification enables your clinicians to focus on preventing ill health and not just the treatment of sickness. If necessary, your clinician may be able to offer you additional services. Please note that you have the right to opt out of your data being used in this way.

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.

Our local NHS Clinical Commissioning Group employ specialist pharmacists and they may at times need to access your records for care reasons support and assist us with prescribing. This reason for this is to help us manage your care and treatment.

We provide extended access services to our patients which means you can access medical services outside of our normal working hours. In order to provide you with this service, we have formal arrangements in place with the Clinical Commissioning Group and with other practices whereby certain key “hub” practices offer this service on our behalf for you as a patient to access outside of our opening hours. This means, those key “hub” practices will have to have access to your medical record to be able to offer you the service. Please note to ensure that those practices comply with the law and to protect the use of your information, we have very robust data sharing agreements and other clear arrangements in place to ensure your data is always protected and used for those purposes only.

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…’

The data collected by Practice staff in the event of a safeguarding situation will be as much personal information as is necessary or possible to obtain in order to handle the situation. In addition to some basic demographic and contact details, we will also process details of what the safeguarding concern is. This is likely to be special category information (such as health information).

The Practice will either receive or collect information when someone contacts the organisation with safeguarding concerns or we believe there may be safeguarding concerns and make enquiries to relevant providers.

The information is used by the Practice when handling a safeguarding incident or concern. We may share information accordingly to ensure duty of care and investigation as required with other partners such as local authorities, the police or healthcare professionals (i.e. their GP or mental health team).

We are committed to protecting your privacy and will only use information collected lawfully in accordance with:

• Data Protection Act 2018
• The General Data Protection Regulations 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
• Information: To Share or Not to Share Review

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 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.

Our practice policy is to respect the privacy of our patients, their families and our staff and to maintain compliance with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and all UK specific Data Protection Requirements. Our policy is to ensure all personal data related to our patients will be protected.

All employees and sub-contractors engaged by our practice are asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. The practice will, if required, sign a separate confidentiality agreement if the client deems it necessary. If a sub-contractor acts as a data processor for [Practice Name] an appropriate contract (art 24-28) will be established for the processing of your information.

In Certain circumstances you may have the right to withdraw your consent to the processing of data. Please contact the Data Protection Officer in writing if you wish to withdraw your consent. If some circumstances we may need to store your data after your consent has been withdrawn to comply with a legislative requirement.

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 in an identifiable format.  In some circumstances you can Opt-out of the surgery sharing any of your information for research purposes.

We would however like to use your name, contact details and email address to inform you of services that may benefit you, with your consent only. There may be occasions were authorised research facilities would like you to take part on innovations, research, improving services or identifying trends.

At any stage where we would like to use your data for anything other than the specified purposes and where there is no lawful requirement for us to share or process your data, we will ensure that you have the ability to consent and opt out prior to any data processing taking place.
This information is not shared with third parties or used for any marketing and you can unsubscribe at any time via phone, email or by informing the practice DPO as below.

All the personal data we process is processed by our staff in the UK however for the purposes of IT hosting and maintenance this information may be located on servers within the European Union.

The Practice uses a system insert clinical system to manage clinical information your care and health. This system is provided by a company called insert company who act as a data processor on behalf of the practice.

(EMIS Practices Only) The data processor that the Practice uses is called EMIS Health Ltd. They also use a sub-processor which is Amazon Web Services who act under written instructions from EMIS Health Ltd. Under no circumstances are any of these organisations allowed or able to access your information.

No 3rd parties have access to your personal data unless the law allows them to do so and appropriate safeguards have been put in place. We have a Data Protection regime in place to oversee the effective and secure processing of your personal and or special category (sensitive, confidential) data.

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

• NHS Trusts / Foundation Trusts
• GP’s
• NHS Commissioning Support Units
• Independent Contractors such as dentists, opticians, pharmacists
• Private Sector Providers
• Voluntary Sector Providers
• Ambulance Trusts
• Clinical Commissioning Groups
• Social Care Services
• NHS England (NHSE) and NHS Digital (NHSD)
• Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH)
• 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 consent for this to happen when this is required.

Computer System This practice operates a Clinical Computer System on which NHS Staff record information securely. This information can then be shared with other clinicians so that everyone caring for you is fully informed about your medical history, including allergies and medication.

To provide around the clock safe care, unless you have asked us not to, we will make information available to trusted organisations. Wherever possible, their staff will ask your consent before your information is viewed.

We consider patient consent as being the key factor in dealing with your health information.

We will normally ask you for your consent, but there are times when we may be required by law to share your information without your consent, for example:

• where there is a serious risk of harm or abuse to you or other people;
• where a serious crime, such as assault, is being investigated or where it could be prevented;
• notification of new births;
• where we encounter infectious diseases that may endanger the safety of others, such as meningitis or measles (but not HIV/AIDS);
• where a formal court order has been issued;
• where there is a legal requirement, for example if you had committed a Road Traffic Offence.

We are required under UK law to keep your information and data for the full retention periods as specified by the NHS Records management code of practice for health and social care and national archives requirements.

More information on records retention can be found online at (https://digital.nhs.uk/article/1202/Records-Management-Code-of-Practice-for-Health-and-Social-Care-2016 )

Even if we already hold your personal data, you still have various rights in relation to it. To get in touch about these, please contact us. We will seek to deal with your request without undue delay, and in any event in accordance with the requirements of any applicable laws. Please note that we may keep a record of your communications to help us resolve any issues which you raise.

Right to object: If we are using your data because we deem it necessary for our legitimate interests to do so, and you do not agree, you have the right to object. We will respond to your request within 30 days (although we may be allowed to extend this period in certain cases). Generally, we will only disagree with you if certain limited conditions apply.

Right to withdraw consent: Where we have obtained your consent to process your personal data for certain activities (for example for a research project), or consent to market to you, you may withdraw your consent at any time.

Right to erasure: In certain situations (for example, where we have processed your data unlawfully), you have the right to request us to “erase” your personal data. We will respond to your request within 30 days (although we may be allowed to extend this period in certain cases) and will only disagree with you if certain limited conditions apply. If we do agree to your request, we will Delete your data but will generally assume that you would prefer us to keep a note of your name on our register of individuals who would prefer not to be contacted. That way, we will minimise the chances of you being contacted in the future where your data are collected in unconnected circumstances. If you would prefer us not to do this, you are free to say so.

Right of data portability: If you wish, you have the right to transfer your data from us to another data controller. We will help with this with a GP to GP data transfer and transfer of your hard copy notes.

Data Subject Access Requests (DSAR): You have a right under the Data Protection legislation 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. To request this, you need to do the following:

• Your request should be made to the Practice – for information from the hospital you should write direct to them

• There is no charge to have a copy of the information held about you

• We are required to respond to you within one month

• You will need to give adequate information (for example full name, address, date of birth, NHS number and details of your request) so that your identity can be verified, and your records located information we hold about you at any time.

You should tell us so that we can update our records please contact the Practice Manager as soon as any of your details change, this is especially important for changes of address or contact details (such as your mobile phone number), the practice will from time to time ask you to confirm that the information we currently hold is accurate and up-to-date.

Should you wish to make a formal complaint please tell us, preferably in writing, as soon as possible after the event. This helps us to establish what happened more easily. In any event, this should be Within 12 months of the incident, or within 12 months of you discovering that you have cause for complaint, giving as much detail as you can.

If you are a registered patient you can complain about your own care. You are unable to complain about someone else’s treatment without their written consent.

We can provide you with a separate complaints form to register your complaint and this includes a form to enable a complaint to be made by someone else.

Please ask at reception for this. If you prefer to write your own letter please include as much information about the incident as possible including your name and address.

Advocacy Service

POhWER are a charity that provides information, advocacy and advice services across England, offering direct and local support via Professionals and Volunteers. For more information contact them on 0300 456 2370 or visit their website www.pohwer.net

Let us know your views
Here at Modality Partnership we take great pride in our practices and always look at areas of improvement for our patients. Your views on the care you receive tell us where change is needed.

“Good or Bad we want to hear from you” 

If you have a complaint about the service you have received, please let us know. We recognize people sometimes worry that making a complaint could be detrimental to the patient’s care so we have processes in place to make sure complaints are dealt with in a confidential and sensitive way that does not discriminate against anyone.

Most concerns can usually be sorted out straight away by the staff that are caring for you. Tell them what is worrying you and they will do their best to help you.

You can inform us in writing of your complaint.

Complaining on behalf of someone
We keep to the strict rules of medical and personal confidentiality. If you wish to make a complaint and are not the patient involved, we will require the written consent of the patient to confirm that they are unhappy with their treatment and that we can liaise with you on their behalf.

Please ask at reception for a complaints form which contains a suitable authority for the patient to sign to enable the complaint to proceed.

How we deal with your complaint?
We look to settle complaints as soon as possible.

We will acknowledge receipt within two working days, and aim to have looked into the matter within 6-weeks. You will either receive a formal letter, or you may be invited to meet with the person(s) concerned to attempt to resolve the issue. If the matter is likely to take longer than this, we will let you know and keep you informed as the investigation progresses.

When looking into a complaint we attempt to see what happened and why. This is to see if there is something we can learn from this and make it possible for you to discuss the issue with those involved if you would like to do so.

Where your complaint involves more than one organisation we will liaise with that organisation so that you receive one coordinated reply.

The final response letter will include details of the result and also your right to escalate the matter further if you remain dissatisfied with the response.

Contact Information:

When making a complaint in writing you should send this in to us at the following address

Modality Immigration Services, 110-114 Church Lane, Birmingham, B20 2ES

T:- 0121 523 1807

E:- imm.meds@nhs.net

Your are also entitled to approach NHS England with your concerns;

NHS England, PO Box 16738, Redditch

T: 0300 311 22 33

E: england.contactus@nhs.net

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome you can raise this with the Ombudsman;

The Parliamentary and Health

Service Ombudsman, Millbank Tower, Millbank, London, SW1P 4QP

T:- 0345 0154033

W:- www.omdudsman.org.uk

Wycliffe house, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0162 5 54 5745

https://ico.org.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. If you have any concerns about how your data is shared, then please contact the Practice Data Protection Officer.

If you would like to know more about your rights in respect of the personal data we hold about you, please contact the Data Protection Officer as below.

The Practice Data Protection Officer is Umar Sabat. Any queries regarding Data Protection issues should be addressed to him at: –

Email: modality.dpo@nhs.net

It is important to point out that we may amend this Privacy Notice from time to time. If you are dissatisfied with any aspect of our Privacy Notice, please contact the Practice Data Protection Officer.