So that we can provide you with the best possible service, a variety of information is collected about you from a range of sources, such as your General Practitioner (GP). This information is used to support your healthcare.
Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), information about your physical and mental health, racial or ethnic origin and religious belief are considered as sensitive personal information and is subject to strict laws governing its use. The sections below will explain why Locala Health and Wellbeing collects personal information about you, the ways in which such information may be used, and your rights under the General Data Protection Regulation. We are legally responsible for ensuring we comply with the general data protection regulation in processing your personal information.
Confidentiality affects everyone: Locala Health and Wellbeing collects, stores and uses large amounts of personal and sensitive personal data every day, such as medical and clinical records, personal records and computerised information. This data is used by many of our colleagues in the course of their work.
We take our duty to protect personal information and confidentiality very seriously and we are committed to comply with all relevant legislation and to take all reasonable measures to ensure the confidentiality and security of personal data for which we are responsible, whether computerised or on paper. All our colleagues are bound by a duty of confidentiality and undertake regular training.
At Board level, we have appointed a Senior Information Risk Owner who is accountable for the management of all information assets and any associated risks and incidents, and a Caldicott Guardian who is responsible for the management of patient information and patient confidentiality.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018 requires Locala Health and Wellbeing to process:
Personal data under 6(1)(e) “Necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the organisation (Data Controller)” and occasionally 6(1)(d) “ when it is necessary to protect the vital interests of a person who is physically or legally incapable of giving consent”
Sensitive personal data (Health Records) under 9(2)(h) – “Necessary for the reasons of preventative or occupational medicine, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services” and occasionally 9(2)(c) “when it is necessary to protect the vital interests of a person who is physically or legally incapable of giving consent”
All clinicians and health and social care professionals caring for you keep records about your health, and any treatment and care you receive from the NHS. These records help to ensure that you receive the best possible care. They may be paper or electronic and they may include:
It is essential that your details are accurate and up to date. We will always check that your personal details are correct when you visit us and please inform us of any changes to your contact details or GP Practice as soon as possible. This minimises the risk of you not receiving important correspondence.
By providing Locala with your contact details, you are agreeing to us communicating with you about your healthcare, i.e. by letter (postal address), by voice mail or voice message (telephone or mobile number), by text message (mobile number) or by email (email address).
In general terms, your records are used to direct, manage and deliver your care so that:
The Care Record is a shared system that allows health or social care professionals within the local health and social care community to appropriately access the most up-to-date and accurate information about patients to deliver the best possible care.
The Care Record Guarantee is our commitment that we will use records about you in ways that respect your rights and promote your health and wellbeing. Copies of the full document can be obtained from here.
Locala Health and Wellbeing view data from the Yorkshire and Humber Care Record. The Yorkshire and Humber Care Record is a shared system that allows Healthcare staff within Yorkshire and Humber to appropriately access the most up-to date and correct information about patients, to deliver the best possible care.
This processing is necessary to perform a public task (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(e)) and necessary for the provision of health or social care treatment (UK GDPR Article 9(2)(h)).
The Yorkshire & Humber Care Record Guarantee is our commitment that we will use records about you in ways that respect your rights and promote your health and wellbeing. If you would like any further information, or would like to discuss this further, please contact the Yorkshire and Humber Care Record on 0113 206 4102 or [email protected].
Yorkshire and Humber Care Record Patient Information Leaflet
This Records Management Code of Practice for Health and Social Care 2016 is a guide for the NHS to use in relation to the practice of managing records. It is relevant to organisations who work within, or under contract to NHS organisations in England. This also includes public health functions in Local Authorities and Adult Social Care where there is joint care provided within the NHS.
The Code is based on current legal requirements and professional best practice. It will help organisations to implement the recommendations of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry relating to records management and transparency.
All patient records are destroyed in accordance with the NHS Records Retention Schedule, which sets out the appropriate length of time each type of NHS records is retained.
Locala does not keep patient records for longer than necessary and all records are destroyed confidentially once their retention period has been met, and we have made the decision that the records are no longer required
Locala Health and Wellbeing ensures that personal confidential data, even it would constitute fair processing, is not, unless certain exemptions apply or protective measures taken, disclosed or transferred outside the European Economic Area to a country or territory which does not ensure an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects.
We share information about you with others directly involved in your care; and also share more limited information for indirect care purposes, both of which are described below.
Everyone working within the NHS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential. Similarly, anyone who receives information from us also has a legal duty to keep it confidential.
Unless you object, we will normally share information about you with other health and social care professionals so that you may receive the best quality care:
You may be receiving care from other people as well as the NHS, for example Social Care Services. We may need to share some information about you with them so we can all work together for your benefit if they have a genuine need for it or we have your permission. Therefore, we may also share your information, subject to strict agreement about how it will be used, with:
We will not disclose your information to any other third parties without your permission unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as if the health and safety of others is at risk or if the law requires us to pass on information.
We also use information we hold about you to:
Nationally there are strict controls on how your information is used for these purposes. These control whether your information has to be de-identified first and with whom we may share identifiable information. You can find out more about these purposes, which are also known as secondary uses, on the NHS England and NHS Digital’s websites:
The Care Quality Commission has powers under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to access and use information – including personal and medical records – where they consider this is necessary for them to carry out their functions as a regulator. They also have powers to access and use information as part of their role protecting the rights of people whose rights are restricted under the Mental Health Act 1983, and powers under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
For example, they check that care services are complying with the regulations regarding record keeping, care planning, consent, cooperating with other providers, and management of medicines.
They publish guidance for our staff on accessing medical and care records. They usually look at only a small sample of these records during an inspection, often in anonymised form. In rare circumstances they may take a copy of parts of a person’s records.
If you do not want CQC to look at your personal information when they check our services, please let us know. We can mark your records to show that you do not want CQC to see them.
If we know that you don’t want CQC to look at your information, your wishes will be respected, other than in rare circumstances which are explained in their Code of Practice on Confidential Personal Information here.
Locala Health and Wellbeing is one of many organisations working in the health and care system to improve care for patients and the public.
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:
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 click here. On this web page you will:
You can also find out more about how patient information is used here (which covers health and care research); and here (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.
Health and care organisations have until 2020 to put systems and processes in place so they can apply your national data opt-out choice. Locala Health and Wellbeing is not currently able to apply your national data opt-out choice to any confidential patient information we may use or share with other organisations for purposes beyond your individual care. The national implementation plan is available on the nhs.uk website above.
Everyone working in Health and Social Care has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential and anyone who receives information from us is also under a legal duty to keep it confidential.
From time to time we may need to share information with other professionals and services concerned in your care. This may be for instance, when your healthcare professional needs to discuss your case with other professionals (who do not work for Locala Health and Wellbeing) in order to plan your care. We do this in order to provide the most appropriate treatment and support for you and your carers, or when the welfare of other people is involved. We will only share information in this way if we have your permission and it is considered necessary.
There may be other circumstances when we must share information with other agencies. In these rare circumstances we are not required to seek your consent.
Examples of this are:
Telephone calls to our Single Point of Contact are routinely recorded for the following purposes:
When attending one of our services for an outpatient appointment or a procedure you may be asked to confirm that we have an accurate contact number and mobile telephone number for you. This can be used to provide appointment details via SMS text messages and automated calls to advise you of appointment times.
Some of the premises we use have surveillance cameras (CCTV) in order to:
You have a right to make a Subject Access Request of surveillance information recorded of yourself and ask for a copy of it. Please see the ‘Data Subjects Rights’ section. The details you provide must contain sufficient information to identify you and assist us in finding the images on our systems.
We reserve the right to withhold information where permissible by Data Protection Legislation and we will only retain surveillance data for a reasonable period or as long as is required by law. In certain circumstances (high profile investigations, serious or criminal incidents) we may need to disclose CCTV data for legal reasons. When this is done there is a requirement for the organisation that has received the images to adhere to Data Protection Legislation.
Under the General Data Protection Regulations and Data Protection Legislation, you have a number of rights which we respect:
Right to be informed – we will tell you what we do with your information. We do this through notices like this, service information leaflets, notices on our website and posters.
Right to rectification – we will correct any personal information that is inaccurate and rectify any data that is incomplete
Right to object – you have the right to object to how we process your information and with whom we share your information. If you object to us sharing your information we will record this explicitly within your records so that all healthcare professionals and staff involved with your care are aware of your decision. If you choose not to allow us to share your information with other health or social care professionals involved with your care, it may make the provision of treatment or care more difficult or unavailable.
Please discuss any concerns with the clinician treating you so that you are aware of any potential impact. You can also change your mind at any time about a disclosure decision.
Right to restrict processing – we will temporarily restrict processing your data whilst we check the information, if you query the accuracy of it. We will also restrict processing (if you raise an objection as to how we process your data) whilst we consider your objection.
Right related to automated profiling – some of our services use profiling for medical treatments, by applying machine learning to predict patients’ health or the likelihood of a treatment being successful for a particular patient based on certain group characteristics. In all cases, the results will be fully discussed with you and you will be involved in planning further treatment and care.
Right of access – you can ask for copies of information we hold about you. This is called a subject access request.
How can you access your records?
The GDPR 2018 gives you a right to access the information we hold about you on our records. Requests should be made to the Resolution team. We will provide your information to you within one month (this can be extended dependent on the complexity of the request) from receipt of your application:
Before fulfilling your request we will need to be able to verify your identity and will ask you to provide relevant documents.
Information will be provided free of charge except where requests are unfounded or excessive, in particular repeat requests when we may either charge a reasonable administrative fee or refuse to act on the request.
Resolution Team
Beckside Court (1st Floor)
286 Bradford Road
Batley, West Yorkshire, WF17 5PW
Tel: 030 3330 8831
Email: [email protected]
The Freedom of information Act 2000 provides you with the right to obtain information held by Locala Health and Wellbeing, subject to a number of exemptions. If you would like to request some information from us, please visit the Freedom of information section of our website.
Our Data Security and Protection policy is available through this website ‘About us/Locala policies and procedures’.
Please note: if your request is for information we hold about you (for example, your health record), please instead see the section on Your Rights.
The Data Controller responsible for keeping your information confidential is:
Locala Health and Wellbeing, Beckside Court (1st Floor)
286 Bradford Road, Batley, West Yorkshire, WF17 5PW
Data Protection Officer is Robert Bachelor.
The Data Protection Officer’s role is to monitor and advise the organisation on meeting its data protection responsibilities.
Our Caldicott Guardian is Victoria Vallance, Director of Quality and Professional Practice. She can be contacted using the details below.
Email: [email protected]
Patients who have a concern about any aspect of their care or treatment from Locala Health and Wellbeing, or about the way their records have been managed, should contact the Customer Liaison Team on [email protected]; telephone 030 3330 4529
If you have any concerns about how we handle your information you have a right to complain to the Information Commissioners Office about it.
The GDPR 2018 requires organisations to lodge a notification with the Information Commissioner to describe the purposes for which they process personal information. These details are publicly available from:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House, Water Lane
Wilmslow, SK9 5AF
Telephone: 08456 306060
Website: ico.org.uk
