Privacy Notice

 

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Introduction

The Data Protection Regulations in the UK include two key pieces of law:

There are other regulations in specific areas which need to be taken into account. This Privacy Notice has been written within the legislative framework as at April 2024. It will be revised as the framework and case law change.  This notice was last updated April 2024.

 

What is this Privacy Notice about? 

This Privacy Notice is part of the information to data subjects about how personal data is used. Being transparent and providing accessible information to individuals about how organisations will use their personal information is a key element of Data Protection Regulations. 

This Privacy Notice is part of our programme to make the data processing activities we are carrying out in order to meet our healthcare obligations transparent.

The Privacy Notice tells you about information we collect and hold about you, the legal basis for collecting and holding the information, what we do with it, how we keep it secure (confidential), who we might share it with and what your rights are in relation to your information.

 

Who we are

Ridgmount Practice (formerly Gower Place Practice) is a friendly, caring & innovative practice.

We are a partnership based close to University College, London (UCL) in a purpose-built Health Centre which we rent from UCL. 

Our patient list size is approximately 17,000 patients; over 80% of patients are students of UCL. The remainder is a mixture of local hospital staff and local residents. 

Our workload is closely linked to the University term-time. In late September and early October, we are particularly busy when the new students start, we register approximately 3000 new patients. 

We are a GMS practice. Our medical system is EMIS WEB. We are part of Camden Clinical Commissioning Group. We are lab-linked with UCLH (our hospital provider). Our practice is connected to the NHSnet/Internet and we use Microsoft Outlook for e-mail correspondence. We use the accuRx texting system. We refer patients through NHS e-Referral Service

The practice is fortunate to have a highly motivated and loyal team. There is a core of practice staff who have been employed at the Practice for more than 5 years. This is extremely beneficial as it creates an atmosphere of continuity in patient care and provides a pool of experience that ensures stability throughout the practice.

We are a training practice.

A weekly clinical meeting is held at the practice in protected time which all the doctors and nurses attend. During this time, we discuss significant event analyses, recent courses or updates, new guidelines and any patients who are causing concern. In addition, we have regular general meetings for all team members which are minuted. 
We participate in the Prescribing Quality Scheme for Camden CCG and fulfill their criteria in prescribing quality and audits to score maximum points.
We are an active member of a Camden GP Federation and also collaborate with other local practices. We are also members of the Camden Central Primary Care Network (PCN).
We are committed to high quality clinical practice and score high QOF points, participate in the long-term conditions programme and try to also let the patients’ priorities be heard. We have an active Patient Participation group.  The doctors and nurses each take a clinical area of responsibility in QOF clinical domains, and the Practice Manager and IT manager are principally involved in the non clinical domains.

Special Interests and Posts

  • Dr Claire Elliott - Clinical Teaching Fellow in Primary Care (Medical Humanities) UCL, GP Appraiser, Women’s Health, Sexual Health, and Child Health
  • Dr Mark Barrett - PCN Lead Diabetes Lead
  • Dr Sarah Jane - GP Trainer, Certificate in Teaching the Teachers, Medical Ethics
  • Dr Latha Kuna - Diabetes, GP Appraiser 
  • Dr Emily Hull - Women’s Health including IUD fittings, Sexual Health
  • Dr Emily Attree - Women’s Health, Sexual Health, Minor Surgery, Surgical Problems 
  • Dr Eleanor Beecraft - Women’s Health including IUD fittings, Sexual Health
  • Dr Sophia Bryant - Women’s Health including IUD & Implant fittings, Adult & Child Health
  • Dr Jennifer Saw - Substance Misuse, Coach and Mentor, Learning Disabilities and Autism
  • Dr Charlotte Dickens - Dermatology, ENT
  • Nurse Dee Williams - Nurse Prescriber, Sexual Health and Travel medicine 
  • Nurse Enmin Zhang - Nurse Prescriber, Asthma & COPD 
  • Nurse Helen Jenkins - Nurse Prescriber, Diabetes 
  • Physician Associates: Nasra Yusuf, Sarah Farooqi, Safaa Abukar
  • Clinical Pharmacist: Aiya Al-Sandouk 
  • First Contact Physio: Greg Sarantis
  • Camden iCope: Lucy Jackson

The doctors share the on-call rota during the weekdays from 8am to 6.30pm. At other times, LCW covers out of hours calls. 

 

Types of information we use

We use the following types of information/data:

  • Personal data and special category personal data such as: 
  1. demographics – name, address, date of birth, postcode, NHS number
  2. racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, medical/health data, sexual life or sexual orientation data. (special category personal data is sometimes called sensitive personal data)
  • Pseudonymised - about individuals but with identifying details (such as name or NHS number) replaced with a unique code.
  • Anonymised - about individuals but with identifying details removed.
  • Aggregated - anonymised information grouped together so that it doesn't identify individuals.
 

What we use your personal data and special category personal for

We use and share information about you in a number of ways. These include, if you are a patient:

Primary uses - information from your GP medical record which can be made available to other NHS and public sector organisations, including doctors, nurses and care professionals in order to help them make the best informed decision, and provide you with the best possible direct care delivery. 

Secondary uses - information from your GP medical record involves extracting identifiable data and (usually) sharing that data with other NHS organisations, for the purpose of indirect care. Examples include using your information for research, auditing, and healthcare planning (population health management).

If you’re a member of staff, we process your data for the purposes of your employment contract, professional monitoring requirements, your health and safety and other employment-related matters.

You have rights to object to the use of your personal data in some circumstances, particularly for secondary use. These are often called “opt-outs”. Details of the available objections are given in section 15 below.

 

Identity and Contact details of the Data Controller and Data Protection Officer  

Practice Contact Details: Ridgmount Practice, 8 Ridgmount Street, London WC1E 7AA. Telephone: 0207 387 6306 or contact us via our secure online form

Practice ICO Reference Number: Z7348287

Data Protection Officer

You can contact the data protection officer by post at the practice address, addressed for the attention of Steve Durbin, the Data Protection Officer, or by email

Please quote the practice name in any communication. The Data Protection Officer service is provided across NCL practices.

 

Organisations we share your personal information with

We share information about you with other GPs, NHS acute or mental health Trusts, local authorities, community health providers, pharmacists, commissioning organisations, medical research organisations and some specific non-NHS organisations for the purposes of direct care and secondary uses. 

We are required under the law to provide you with the following information how we process your personal data, the purpose of proposing, recipient/categories of your personal data, the identity of our Data Protection Officer (DPO), how long we retain personal information about you, the legal basis and justification for the processing, and your right to view, request access copies of your personal information, or object to the processing.

Included below is a list of the categories of organisations we share information about you, and data processors we use to process your information:

  • Direct Medical Care and Administration
  • Other primary care services delivered for the purposes of direct care
  • Statutory Disclosures of Information
  • Processing for the Purposes of Commissioning, Planning, Research and Risk Stratification
  • Data Sharing Databases
  • Data Processors

To see a list of all the organisations we share information about you with please contact us via our secure online form

In most cases, the Data Controller and Data Protection Officer (DPO) are as listed in section 6 above. Where they are not, they are specified in the table.

 

The Information Commissioner

The office of the Information Commissioner (ICO) is the regulator for personal data use in the UK. You can contact them with complaints or concerns regarding our use of your personal data, but please note you should always attempt to resolve issues with us first. 

The ICO can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner’s Office 
Wycliffe House 
Water Lane 
Wilmslow 
Cheshire 

Tel: 0303 123 1113 or 01625 545 745

 

What is EMIS Systems Local Record Sharing?

Your GP medical record is held on our secure clinical system called EMIS Web. This clinical system allows for local record sharing with other healthcare providers who are commissioned in your area to provide care (e.g. acute hospitals, mental and community health). Through this record sharing, clinicians are able to see clinical information entered by other organisations who are party to the EMIS local record sharing agreement.

This local sharing is used to provide direct patient care for services such as continued extended access, home visits, universal offers, musculoskeletal service, GP at front door and other neighbourhood services across North Central London in line the local care delivery strategy.

It also enables specific GPs identify their patients with highly complex, multiple morbidity and/or frailty, who might benefit from targeted multi-disciplinary team support as part of case management and care planning (the "Case Finding Purpose").

How will my information be made available?

The information is accessed in real time and on-demand, meaning that data from your GP record is neither extracted, nor uploaded, nor sent anywhere. The data remains within your GP EMIS database and users are allowed read-view access only. If you have any concerns regarding EMIS local record sharing you can opt out by speaking to your GP Surgery.

 

What do we use anonymised data for?

We use anonymised data to plan health care services. Specifically we use it to:

  • check the quality and efficiency of the health services we provide;
  • plan for future service delivery to take into account local needs and priorities;
  • prepare performance reports on the services we provide and,
  • review the healthcare we provide in order they are of the highest standard.
 

Details of data linkage with other datasets 

Data may be de-identified and linked so that it can be used to improve health care and development and monitor NHS performance. Where data is used for these statistical purposes, stringent measures are taken to ensure individual patients cannot be identified.

When analysing current health services and proposals for developing future services it is sometimes necessary to link separate individual datasets to be able to produce a comprehensive evaluation.  This may involve linking primary care GP data with other data such as secondary uses service (SUS) data (inpatient, outpatient and A&E).  In some cases there may also be a need to link local datasets which could include a range of acute-based services such as radiology, physiotherapy, audiology etc, as well as mental health and community-based services such as Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT), community nursing, podiatry etc.  When carrying out this analysis, the linkage of these datasets is always done using a unique identifier that does not reveal a person’s identity.

The organisation responsible for processing de-identified and linked data under this category, on behalf of the Practice is North Central London Integrated Care Board We ensure that the data processor is legally and contractually bound to operate and prove security arrangements are in place where data that could or does identify a person are processed. 

 

What safeguards are in place to ensure data that identifies me is secure?

We only use information that may identify you in accordance with the data protection legislation. This requires us to process personal data only if there is a lawful basis for doing so and that any processing must be fair and lawful.

We also ensure the information we hold is kept in secure locations, restrict access to information to authorised personnel only, protect personal and confidential information held on equipment such as laptops with encryption (which masks data so that unauthorised users cannot see or make sense of it).

Our appropriate technical and security measures include: 

  • The ability to ensure ongoing confidentiality, integrity, availability and resilience of our systems;
  • the ability to quickly restore availability and access to personal information in the event of a physical or technical incident; and
  • a process regularly testing, assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of security measures, and ensure they comply with the concept of privacy by design and default.

The NHS Digital Code of Practice on Confidential Information applies to all of our staff, and they are required to protect your information, inform you of how your information will be used, and allow you to decide if and how your information can be shared. All Practice staff are trained to ensure information is kept confidential.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a data controller and collects data for a variety of purposes. A copy of the registration is available through the ICO website. You can search by our Practice name or ICO Data Protection Register number, both of which are given at section 6 above (contact details).

 

What are your rights?

Where information from which you can be identified is held, you have the:

  • Right of access to view or request copies of the records 
  • Right to rectification of inaccurate personal data or special categories of personal data
  • Right to restriction of the processing of your data where accuracy of the data is contested, processing is unlawful or where we no longer need the data for the purposes of the processing
  • Right to object to any automated individual decision-making
  • Right to data portability by requesting the data which you provided to us (not data generated by us) in a structured, commonly used machine readable format. Your right to portability applies only where:
  1. data is processed by automated means, and
  2. you provided consent to the processing or,
  3. the processing is necessary for the fulfilment of a contract

These rights will only apply where we cannot demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for continued processing of your personal data for the purposes of direct provision of care, and compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject.

Your right to erasure (right to be forgotten) will only apply where you had given ‘consent’ to process your personal health data and later withdrew the consent, and does not apply to the extent where the processing of your personal health data is necessary for:

You can exercise your rights at any time by contacting the Practice (data controller) or the Data Protection Officer (DPO) at the contact addresses given, although we will first need to explain how this may affect the care you receive and any overriding legitimate grounds for the processing that may apply.

 

Gaining access to the data we hold about you

You have the right to see or have a copy of personal data we hold that can identify you. You do not need to give a reason to see your data. However, some information may be withheld under some exceptional circumstances.

If you want to access your personal information you must do so in by contacting the practice at the address given or by contacting our DPO at the address given. Note that as the DPO does not have access to personal data, the DPO will forward requests to the practice, however it is a legal right for you to use this route should you choose.

 

What is the right to know?

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) gives people a general right of access to information held by or on behalf of public authorities, promoting a culture of openness and accountability across the public sector.

g. What sort of information can I request?

In theory, you can request any information that the Practice holds that does not fall under an exemption under the FOI Act. You may not ask for information that is covered by the Data Protection Regulations under FOIA i.e. personal data.  However, you can request this under a Subject Access Request – see section above ‘Gaining access to the data we hold about you’.

h. How do I make a request for information?

Your request must be in writing and can be either posted or emailed using our secure online form to Carol Sheils Practice Manager, Ridgmount Practice, 8 Ridgmount Street, London WC1E 7AA

 

How the NHS and care services use your information

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 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 on the Health Research Authority website (which covers health and care research); and Understanding Patient Data (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.

Our organisation is compliant with the national data opt-out policy. There are other objections to processing – opt-outs – available to you. Please contact the surgery for more information about your options

 

Glossary of Terms

Aggregated data - anonymised data grouped together so that it doesn't identify individuals. For example, there are 117,000 people with COPD living in the London area.  Aggregated data is used for many public health planning purposes.

Anonymised data  - data about individuals but with identifying details removed. For example, name, address, postcode replaced with the first half of the postcode, date of birth replaced with just year and month of birth. 

Common Law of Duty of Confidentiality - is not written out in one document like the UK GDPR or an Act of Parliament. Common Law is also referred to as ‘judge-made’ or case law. In practice, this means that all patient/client information, whether held on paper, computer, visually or audio recorded, or held in the memory of the professional, must not normally be disclosed without the consent of the patient/client. However, where the disclosure/sharing of the patient/client information is for the purpose of Direct Care consent to such disclosure/sharing may be implied where it is informed, given there is a legitimate relationship between the patient/client and the health professional.

Data Protection Legislation - means any laws or regulations applying to personal data in the UK.

Personal Data - means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.

Pseudonymised data – data about individuals but with identifying details (such as name or NHS number) replaced with a unique code. The unique code is restricted to internal NHS use and separated from the rest of the data so cannot easily be used to re-identify individuals.

Special Categories of Personal Data – Sometimes called “sensitive personal data”. Data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.