GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulations and is a new piece of legislation that will supersede the Data Protection Act. It will not only apply to the UK and EU; it covers anywhere in the world in which data about EU citizens is processed.

The GDPR is similar to the Data Protection Act (DPA) 1998 (which the practice already complies with), but strengthens many of the DPA’s principles. This comes into practice on May 25th.

The main changes are:

Practices must comply with subject access requests.

• Where we need your consent to process data, this consent must be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous.

• There are new, special protections for patient data.

• Compliance must be actively demonstrated, for example it will be necessary to:

Keep and maintain up-to-date records of the data flows from the practice and the legal basis for these flows; and have data protection policies and procedures in place.

• Privacy Notices.

• A legal requirement to report certain data breaches.

• Designation of Data Protection Officers

The changes in GDPR mean that we must get explicit permission from patients when using their data. This is to protect your right to privacy, and we may ask you to provide consent to do certain things, like contact you or record certain information about you for your clinical records.  

At Durnford Medical Centre our preferred way of keeping in touch with all our patients is through a text messaging service called MJOG which is run through a secure N3 network and used by GP surgeries and hospitals throughout the country. Through MJOG we are able to remind patients of surgery appointments reducing DNA’s, reporting patient’s satisfaction when visiting the practice and also notifying patients of any health promotion clinics. 

GDPR Patient Leaflet

Practice Privacy Notice (PPN)

Under General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) you have a right to understand what the GP Surgery holds on you and how we will use your personal information. GDPR is new legislation/law that gives you more rights over your personal data and came into force across the UK on 25th May 2018.

Your rights are as follows:

Covid-19 and your information - Updated on 24^th April 2020

Supplementary privacy note on Covid-19 for Service Users

This notice describes how we may use your information to protect you and others during the Covid-19 outbreak. It supplements our main Privacy Notice

The health and social care system is facing significant pressures due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Health and care information is essential to deliver care to individuals, to support health and social care services and to protect public health. Information will also be vital in researching, monitoring, tracking and managing the outbreak. In the current emergency, it has become even more important to share health and care information across relevant organisations.

Existing law which allows confidential patient information to be used and shared appropriately and lawfully in a public health emergency is being used during this outbreak.

Using this law, the Secretary of State has required NHS Digital; NHS England and Improvement; Arm’s Length Bodies (such as Public Health England); local authorities; health organisations and GPs to share confidential patient information to respond to the Covid-19outbreak. Any information used or shared during the Covid-19 outbreak will be limited to the period of the outbreak, unless there is another legal basis to use the data. Further information is available on gov.uk here and some FAQs on this law are available here

During this period of emergency, opt-outs will not generally apply to the data used to support the Covid-19 outbreak, due to the public interest in sharing information. This includes National Data Opt-outs. However, in relation to the Summary Care Record, existing choices will be respected. Where data is used and shared under these laws, your right to have personal data erased will also not apply. It may also take us longer to respond to Subject Access requests, Freedom of Information requests and new opt-out requests whilst we focus our efforts on responding to the outbreak.

In order to look after your health and care needs, we may share your confidential patient information including health and care records with clinical and non-clinical staff in other health and care providers, for example neighbouring GP practices, hospitals and NHS 111.

We may also use the details we have to send public health messages to you, either by phone, text or email.

During this period of emergency, we may offer you a consultation via telephone or videoconferencing. By accepting the invitation and entering the consultation you are consenting to this. Your personal/confidential patient information will be safeguarded in the same way it would with any other consultation.

We will also be required to share personal/confidential patient information with health and care organisations and other bodies engaged in disease surveillance for the purposes of protecting public health, providing healthcare services to the public and monitoring and managing the outbreak. Further information about how health and care data is being used and shared by other NHS and social care organisations in a variety of ways to support the Covid-19 response is here.

NHS England and Improvement and NHSX have developed a single, secure store to gather data from across the health and care system to inform the Covid-19 response. This includes data already collected by NHS England, NHS Improvement, Public Health England and NHS Digital. New data will include 999 call data, data about hospital occupancy and A&E capacity data as well as data provided by patients themselves. All the data held in the platform is subject to strict controls that meet the requirements of data protection legislation.

In such circumstances where you tell us you’re experiencing Covid-19 symptoms we may need to collect specific health data about you. Where we need to do so, we will not collect more information than we require, and we will ensure that any information collected is treated with the appropriate safeguards. 

We may amend this privacy notice at any time so please review it frequently. The date at the top of this page will be amended each time this notice is updated.