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Privacy Notice – Direct Care

Plain English explanation

This privacy notice explains why health and care organisations share information about you and how that information may be used in the Connecting your Care programme.

You can find out more about the organisations that are part of Connecting your Care on our website, along with the answers to some Frequently Asked Questions at: www.swlondon.nhs.uk/connectingyourcare.

The health and care professionals who look after you keep their own records in different specialist systems that contain details of any treatment or care you have received or are receiving from them. These records may be electronic, on paper or a mixture of both, and a combination of working practices and technology ensure your information is kept confidential and secure.

Connecting your Care provides health and care professionals with a secure electronic summary view of the information that organisations want to share about you. This provides the people looking after you with important information from other services that you use, so that they can quickly assess you and make the best decision or plans about your care.

The information which health and care organisations can share about you might include the following information:

• Details about you, such as address, contact details and next of kin
• Any contact the health or care provider has had with you, such as appointments, clinic visits, emergency appointments, etc.
• Notes/reports and assessments about your health and care
• Details about your planned treatment and care
• Results of investigations, such as blood tests, scans, x-rays, etc.
• Relevant information from other health and care professionals, relatives or those who care for you
• Care and support you may be receiving from Social Care services
• Urgent care and NHS 111 visits/calls
• London Ambulance Service calls.

As part of this Privacy Notice we are required by law to provide you with the following information. To help in understanding the terms of this Notice we have provided definitions where indicated.

1) Controller contact details

Mersham Medical Centre
30 Norbury Road
Thornton Heath
Surrey
CR7 8JN
0208 653 1869

2) Data Protection Officer contact details

Umar Sabet

Email: dpo.swl@nhs.net 

3) Purpose of the processing (sharing)

Information will be shared in order to facilitate “direct care” that is delivered to the individual – that is, where a health or care Organisation has direct contact with a patient or service user in order to provide them with immediate care, treatment or services.

Direct Patient Care is defined as:

“a clinical, social or public health activity concerned with the prevention, investigation and treatment of illness and the alleviation of suffering of individuals. It includes supporting individuals’ ability to function and improve their participation in life and society. It includes the assurance of safe and high quality care and treatment through local audit, the management of untoward or adverse incidents, person satisfaction including measurement of outcomes undertaken by one or more registered and regulated health or social care professionals and their team with whom the individual has a legitimate relationship for their care”. [Information: To Share or Not To Share? Dame Fiona Caldicott,  April 2013  www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-information-governance-review].

4) Lawful basis for processing (sharing)

“Processing involves any operation performed on personal data, whether or not by automated means. This includes collection, use, recording, feeding it to machine learning algorithms.”

The processing (sharing) of personal data in the delivery of direct care and for providers’ administrative purposes in this organisation, and in support of direct care elsewhere, is supported under the following Article 6 and 9 conditions of the: Data Protection Act 2018/General Data Protection Regulation 2016:

• Article 6(1)(e) ‘…necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority…’.
• Article 9(2)(h) ‘necessary for the purposes of preventative 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 and services…”

Health and social care services have a  legal obligation to share information about you from their records if it is seen to be in your best interests for the purposes of your direct care.

We will also recognise your rights established under UK case law collectively known as the “Common Law Duty of Confidentiality”.

“Common Law Duty of Confidentiality”

Common law is not written out in one document like an Act of Parliament. It is a form of law based on previous court cases decided by judges; hence, it is also referred to as ‘judge-made’ or ‘case’ law. The law is applied by reference to those previous cases, so common law is also said to be based on precedent.

The general position is that if information is given in circumstances where it is expected that a duty of confidence applies, that information cannot normally be disclosed without the information provider’s consent or, in the absence of consent, a legitimising purpose.

5) The Sources of the Data and the Recipient or categories of recipients of the processed data

Data sources

Information is shared between all the health and care organisations that are part of the Connecting your Care programme.

For the full list of organisations that are part of Connecting your Care please see our website: www.swlondon.nhs.uk/connectingyourcare.

Categories of recipients

Only health and care professionals in each of the defined organisations who are providing you directly with care or services can see your information.

This Privacy Notice will be reviewed and updated annually, as required, or in the event of significant change. The list of organisations that are part of Connecting your Care will be updated each time new partners join the programme.

7) Rights to object

You have the right to object to some or all your information being processed (shared)  under current data protection legislation (Article 21 the General Data Protection Regulations 2016, and the Data Protection Act 2018).

You are advised that whilst under this legislation you have the right to raise an objection, this right is not absolute in relation to health and care data being shared for for the purposes of direct care under the lawful bases for sharing as described in section 4 of this Privacy Notice.

All objections will be considered on an individual basis by the Data Controller.

The contact details for the DPO for each organisation can be found in section 2 of this Privacy Notice as displayed by each individual organisation, or on their website.

8) Right to access and rectification

Access

You have the right to see the data that is being shared about you. This is known as ‘the right of subject access’. You can make a request for this information from a provider.

If your health or care provider holds information about you, and you make a subject access request they will:

• Give you a description of it
• Tell you why it is being held
• Tell you who it could be shared with
• Let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.

To make a Subject Access Request you will need to contact your health or care provider’s Data Protection Officer in writing. The contact details for the DPO for each organisation can be found in section 2 of this Privacy Notice as displayed by each individual organisation, or on their website. Rectification

You have the right to have inaccurate personal data rectified, and in some circumstances removed. Requests to amend or delete data should be  made to the individual Data Controller via the DPO, as per the contact information in section 2 of this Privacy Notice.

Under current data protection legislation, all data controllers have a responsibility to ensure the information held about you is correct and up to date and must take all reasonable steps to correct or erase incorrect information as soon as possible.

All requests to amend or remove information will be addressed on an individual basis by each Data Controller, however, it should be noted that, for example, information recorded by a health or care professional that is believed to be correct at the time of documentation, even when subsequently updated, is unlikely to be removed.

There is no right to have accurate medical records deleted except when ordered by a Court of Law.

9) Retention period

Information held about you by each Data Controller  will be retained in line with the law and national guidance. www.digital.nhs.uk/article/1202/Records-Management-Code-of-Practice-for-Health-and-Social-Care-2016.

10)  Right to Complain.

You have the right to complain about the way in which your information is used or shared,  if you think the information has been shared inappropriately. Each provider will have their own complaints process and you will need to contact them directly to register a complaint.

You can find the contact details and information about how to register a complaint on the website.

You can also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at www.ico.org.uk/global/contact-us or call their helpline Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (national rate).

Frequently Asked Questions

For more information, please view the Connecting Your Care FAQs.

What are cookies?

Cookies are files saved on your phone, tablet or computer when you visit a website.

They store information about how you use the website, such as the pages you visit.

Cookies are not viruses or computer programs. They are very small so do not take up much space.

How we use cookies

We use cookies to:

• make our website work, for example by keeping it secure
• remember which pop-ups you’ve seen
• measure how you use our website, such as which links you click on (analytics cookies)
• help show you relevant health campaigns on social media

Change your cookie settings

Some cookies, like those used to measure how you use our website, are not needed for our website to work.

These cookies can help us make our website better, but we’ll only use them if you say it’s OK.

It is NHS policy to treat all patients and employees fairly and equally regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, marital status, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion, age or disability. You can find details of the policy on the NHS Website.

All GP practices are required to declare the mean earnings (e.g. average pay) for GPs working to deliver NHS services to patients at each practice.

The average pay for GPs working in Mersham Medical Centre in the 2022/23 financial year was £79,631 before tax and National Insurance. This is for 2 full time GPs and 2 locum GPs who worked in the practice for more than 6 months.

We always do our best to try to see patients in a timely fashion. However this is unfortunately increasingly difficult as patients become more complex and we continue to work to a 10 minute appointment slot.

Some of our patients present with two or three problems which can rarely be dealt with in 10 minutes. We do our best to give each patient the time we feel they need and this often leads us to run late despite building in some catch up slots to our clinics.

Please help us by allowing plenty of time so that you arrive for your appointment on time.

We know it can be frustrating when you arrive on time and you have to wait a long time for your appointment. Please be patient with us. Perhaps one day you will also benefit from being given extra time when you need it.

Arriving late for an appointment makes clinicians run even later with a knock on effect on other patients.

With the above in mind, our policy is:

• If a patient is late less than 10 minutes for an appointment, they will be seen.
• If a patient is late between 10-15 minutes, the patient may be asked to rebook or wait until the end of surgery to be seen.
  The receptionist may need to speak to the clinician first to see if they are able to accommodate the patient.
• Patients who arrive more than 15 minutes late for their appointment will be asked to reschedule their appointment.
  If a patient is deemed urgent, the Receptionist has to contact the clinician to decide if the patient can be seen at the end of surgery or fitted in at a later time during the day.

We have a ‘One Problem Per Consultation’ policy

We kindly ask that all patients try and stick to our ‘One Problem Per Consultation’ policy. The main reason for this request is for clinical safety.

We know that getting an appointment with the doctor is sometimes difficult and that some patients ‘save’ their problems and present them to the doctor at the same time, with or without a list. We also know that the clinician may run late. All of this increases the tendency for patients to present multiple problems to their Doctor/Nurse at one consultation.

Each appointment is only 10 minutes long. Ten minutes is not a lot of time, even for just one problem, e.g., 1 minute to get to the doctor’s room and sit down, 3 minutes to tell a history, 3-4 minutes to perform a targeted examination, 2 minutes to explain, advise and treat. There is no time left in the ten minutes to write up notes, fill out forms, dictate referrals or speak to other team members for advice.

Presenting the clinician with multiple problems means that there is a real increased risk that mistakes will be made and things missed as the clinician may be inclined to rush, particularly if other patients are waiting.

One of Primary Care’s main purposes is to detect serious diseases early.

Presenting multiple problems to the clinician increases the difficulty of this task – it is like finding the ‘needle in a haystack’.

Doctors cannot see huge numbers of patients with multiple problems and continue to practice safely and effectively. A stressed doctor will struggle to be a good and safe doctor.

We do consider that GP appointments are a limited resource and we would kindly ask that such a service be used with care and consideration.

Therefore please do not be offended if the doctor asks you to rebook for your other problems. We are working in your best interests to keep you safe.

We would always encourage patients to book double appointments if there are two problems that need discussing.

As part of our ongoing development, we would like to learn from you. We like to hear about what we are doing well and we also want to hear about what we are not doing so well. Please feel free to give us your feedback. You can also download a Complaint Form.

We aim to provide a professional, friendly and courteous service to all our patients. We hope that any problems can be sorted out quickly and easily, preferably at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If you wish to make a complaint we would ask that you do this in writing and address it for the complaints manager’s attention. If you wish to complain on another person’s behalf you will need their written permission to do so.

If you have a complaint about another service within the NHS, for example a hospital, you will need to direct it to the complaints department of the relevant service.

You can find out about our complaints procedure below:

• Mersham Medical Centre Complaints Process

We comply with the NHS Complaints Procedure:

• Find out more about how to feedback or make a complaint about an NHS service.

Your Summary Care Record contains important information from the record held by your GP practice and includes details of any medicines you are taking, any allergies you suffer from and any bad reactions to medicines that you have previously experienced. Healthcare staff will have access to this information, so that they can provide safer care, whenever or wherever you need it, anywhere in England.

Your Summary Care Record also includes your name, address, date of birth and your unique NHS Number to help identify you correctly. As part of a mandatory national programme each GP Practice had to make a summary care record for each patient by March 2015 (unless the patient has already opted out).

You can choose to opt out of this scheme at any time. If you wish to opt out of the Summary Care Record scheme please complete our opt-out form.

Privacy Notice for Summary Care Record 

For more information read the Summary Care Record patient information.