Health Records

The staff at this practice record information about you and your health so that you can receive the right care and treatment. We need to record this information, together with the details of the care you receive, because it may be needed if we see you again.

How do we know we are looking after you well?

Sharing information about how we practise medicine and about the health of the UK public is vital to improving the nation's health and to ensure that the NHS runs efficiently and fairly.

From time to time this practice will examine our patient records in order to see if you are receiving the best possible care and to identify ways in which this could be improved. This is called audit.

Sometimes we are asked to remove all information that can identify you and provide anonymised statistics to other parts of the NHS for research and audit purposes.

Data will only ever be given to essential key personnel and it will be kept to the minimum necessary for the purpose.

For example, we use A.L.I.V.E.* Guidelines to ensure the best prevention and treatment of heart disease. So from time to time we will audit patient notes to make sure we are doing this well and to help us improve the service you receive.

Everyone working for the NHS and anyone who receives information from us is also under a legal duty to keep it confidential.

Your health records are protected by the Data Protection Act

The practice is bound by the Data Protection Act (1998) to keep your patient records safe and confidential.

If you have any questions or concerns about how your information is kept or used, please contact the Practice Manager.

If you do not wish us to include your health record when we do a search of patient records, please register your objection with a member of the practice staff. Thank you.

Produced by the A.L.I.V.E. Project 
(* Actions LInked to Vascular Events)

Supported by the North & Mid Hampshire Local Medical Committee
9/10/2001

 

Hampshire Health Record

The Hampshire Health Record Project has been running since 2005, and provides a shared health record for patients resident in Hampshire, Southampton and Portsmouth. It combines an extract of the GP record with hospital pathology/radiology reports and clinical correspondence and at present, there are GP records for 50% of Hampshire PCT patients. Winchester and North Hampshire Trusts will provide information shortly. The information is used by Out of Hours GPs, A&E clinical staff and admissions pharmacists to streamline and improve the management of patients in out of hours and emergency situations.

Access to the Hampshire Health record can only be made by staff who have the explicit consent of patients, and patients who do not wish to have a Hampshire Health Record may opt out.

For more information about how to view and/or withhold your record please go to http://www.hantshealthrecord.nhs.uk  or contact our computer operators Anthony or Eunice on 01420 542 542

Research

We may use some of this information for other reasons, for example, to help us to protect the health of the public generally, to plan for the future, to train staff and to carry out medical and other health research for the benefit of everyone.

We are currently involved in research studies for which we provide anonymised information from patients' notes. You cannot be identified in any way from this information as none of your personal details are given to researchers. Individual patients' records are added into a much larger anonymous database, containing records from millions of patients across the UK. This information is used by researchers outside this practice. The database to which we contribute anonymised records is known as The Health Improvement Network (THIN). This database is managed by a company outside the NHS which does not have access to your personal details, only to anonymous medical records. The data are used for research into such topics as drug safety, disease patterns, prescribing patterns, health economics and public health. Many of these studies provide useful information to medical staff on diseases, the use of drugs or outcomes of disease or treatment.

These studies may be performed by academic researchers or commercial companies amongst others. However, no researcher has access to your full details such as your name and address, initials or your full date of birth. The researchers are not given information on the GP nor the practice name, address or post code.

If you would like to opt out of this data collection scheme, please let your doctor know and no data from your records will be collected or used in research. This will not affect your care in any way.

If anything to do with the research would require that you provide additional information about yourself, you will be contacted to see if you are willing to take part; you will not be identified in any published results.

Note that you have a right of access to your health records. If at any time you would like to know more, or have any concerns about how we use your information, you can speak to Margaret Lockett - telephone number: 01420 542542

See... Medical Research Data Collection poster