Record Sharing & Confidentiality

The Spinney Surgery is registered with the Information Commissioner under the Data Protection Act and conforms to all the requirements regarding our handling of your confidential information.  Our Privacy Notice can be accessed by clicking here.

EDSM (Enhanced Data Sharing Model)

Your health record includes your medical history, details about your medication and any allergies you may have. You can now choose whether to share these full medical details. With your permission, the surgery can allow clinicians to share your full record with other healthcare services who are providing care for you. These other services will ask your permission to view your record.

Sharing your record will help deliver the best care to you. Until you have answered the questions and advised the surgery, your record will not be shared. This is the default unless you inform us otherwise.

Summary Care Record

A Summary Care Record is an electronic record which contains information about the medicines you take, allergies you suffer from and any bad reactions to medicines you have had. Having this information stored in one place makes it easier for healthcare staff to treat you in an emergency or when your GP practice is closed. This information could make a difference to how a doctor decides to care for you e.g. which medicines they choose to prescribe for you.

For more information, including how to opt out of this service, please click here.

Access to Online Medical Records

All patients should have online access to their full record, including the ability to add their own information, as the default position from April 2020, with new registrants of an organisation having full online access to the digital record for their prospective information from April (now July) 2022, starting from the date of their registration for online services.

To sign up for online services, please click here. If you have any further queries, please contact us at the surgery.

Freedom of Information

Information about the General Practioners and the practice required for disclosure under this act can be made available to the public. All requests for such information should be made to the Practice Manager.

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 at The Spinney Surgery in the last financial year was £47,718 before tax and National Insurance. This is for 6 part time GPs who worked in the practice for more than six months (financial year 2020/21).

Confidentiality

The practice complies with data protection and access to medical records legislation.

Identifiable information about you will be shared with others in the following circumstances:

• To provide further medical treatment for you e.g. from district nurses and hospital services.
• To help you get other services e.g. from the social work department. This requires your consent.
• When we have a duty to others e.g. in child protection cases anonymised patient information will also be used at local and national level to help the Health Board and Government plan services e.g. for diabetic care.

If you do not wish anonymous information about you to be used in such a way, please let us know. Reception and administration staff require access to your medical records in order to do their jobs. These members of staff are bound by the same rules of confidentiality as the medical staff.