Everyone working for the NHS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential.
You may be receiving care from other people as well as the NHS. So that we can all work together for your benefit we may need to share some information about you.
We only ever use or pass on information about you if people have a genuine need for it in your and everyone’s interests. Whenever we can we shall remove details that identify you.
The sharing of some types of very sensitive personal information is strictly controlled by law.
Anyone who receives information from us is under a legal duty to keep it confidential.
Under 16s
The duty of confidentiality owed to a person under 16 is as great as the duty owed to any other person. Young people aged under 16 years can choose to see health professionals, without informing their parents or carers. If a GP considers that the young person is competent to make decisions about their health, then the GP can give advice, prescribe and treat the young person without seeking further consent.
However, in terms of good practice, health professionals will encourage young people to discuss issues with a parent or carer. As with older people, sometimes the law requires us to report information to appropriate authorities in order to protect young people or members of the public.
How We Share Your Data – Local & National Schemes
Provision of Information to Third Parties
The practice may share your personal information with other NHS organisations where this is appropriate for your healthcare.
In other circumstances we may approach you for specific consent to release personal information to third parties.
In some circumstances there are statutory or ethical obligations to disclose information to others (such as public health issues) which may not require your consent. However you will be consulted about these in advance unless there is an over-riding public interest in not doing so.
OpenSAFELY Data Analytics Service
NHS England has been directed by the government to establish and operate the OpenSAFELY COVID-19 Service and the OpenSAFELY Data Analytics Service. These services provide a secure environment that supports research, clinical audit, service evaluation and health surveillance for COVID-19 and other purposes.
Each GP practice remains the controller of its own GP patient data but is required to let approved users run queries on pseudonymised patient data. This means identifiers are removed and replaced with a pseudonym.
Only approved users are allowed to run these queries, and they will not be able to access information that directly or indirectly identifies individuals.
Patients who do not wish for their data to be used as part of this process can register type 1 opt out with their GP.
Find additional information about OpenSAFELY.