OneNorwich Practices and Your Information 

This notice is summarised in video form if you prefer. See above.

We take your privacy very seriously. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office as a Data Controller and our registration number can be found if you search the ICO online register.

We aim to provide you with the highest quality health care.

To do this we must keep records about you, your health and the care we have provided or plan to provide to you.

Your doctor and other health professionals caring for you, such as nurses or physiotherapists, keep records about your health and treatment so that they are able to provide you with the best possible care.

Please be aware that both clinical and administrative staff will access your personal data, this allows us to manage high volumes of communication and activity.

Administrative staff are bound by confidentiality in the same way as the clinician is and will keep your information private.

These records are called your ‘health care record’ and may be stored in paper form or on computer and electronic systems and may include Personal Data;

• basic details about you, such as address, date of birth, NHS number, and next of kin​as well as Sensitive Personal Data
• contact we have had with you, such as clinical visits
• notes and reports about your health
• details and records about your treatment and care
• results of x-rays, laboratory tests etc​

Healthcare providers are permitted to collect, store, use and share this information under Data Protection Legislation which has a specific section related to healthcare information.

If you have any questions or wish to make a request in relation to your information, please contact us using the details on our main page or contact our data protection officer at hannah.calway@nhs.net

​Our data protection officer service is provided by Kafico Ltd. When we ask for their support, we will aim to remove any reference to individual patients. Where this is not possible, we will use the minimum necessary to allow us to obtain advice and support.

You can find out more about Kafico Ltd, including their privacy policy at https://www.kafico.co.uk/privacy-policy 

What We Do with Your Information 

Below is a description of the routine uses of your information;

• Refer you to other healthcare providers when you need other service or tests
• Discuss or share information about your health or care with other health or social care providers​
• Share samples with laboratories for testing (like blood samples)​
• Share test results with hospitals or community services (like blood test results)
• Allow out of hours or extended hours GPs to look at your health record when you are going to an appointment
• Send prescriptions to a pharmacy
• Text patients in relation to healthcare services. See Information Technology for more information.
• Samples are provided to the courier for delivery to pathology
• Share reports with the coroner
• Receive reports of appointments you have attended elsewhere such as with the community nurse or if you have had a stay in hospital
• Produce medical reports on request from third parties such as the DVLA or your employer
• Movement of Patient records to Primary Care Support England
• Along with activities related directly to your care, we also use information in ways which allow us to check that care is safe and provide data for the improvement and planning of services.
• Quality / payment / performance reports are provided to service commissioners
• As part of clinical research – information that identifies you will be removed, unless you have consented to being identified
• Undertaking clinical audits locally to ensure safety and efficiency
• Supporting staff training
• Incident and complaint management
• Sending OneNorwich Practices information to other NHS bodies for national audits or research that are required by law (e.g. NHS Digital Audit Data Collection) or the Learning Disabilities Census
• Local evaluations and planning activities 

Sharing When Required by Law 

Sometimes we will be required by law to share your information and will not always be able to discuss this with you directly. Examples might be for the purposes of detection or prevention of crime, where it is in the wider public interest, to safeguard children or vulnerable adults, reporting infectious diseases or where required by court order.

Care Quality Commission Access to Health Records

CQC has powers under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to access and use your health information where it is necessary to carry out their functions as a regulator.​

This means that inspectors may ask to look at certain records to decide whether we are providing safe, good quality care.

More information about the CQC can be obtained on their website https://www.cqc.org.uk/about-us/our-policies/privacy-statement

 

Children and Young People 

• Young people from aged 13 (and sometimes younger) are allowed to make decisions about how their health information is shared. 
• A parent or guardian may apply for access to young person’s information.
• If a young person does not consent – we may not provide access to the adult.
• If the young person does not have the capacity to understand, we may provide access to the adult because it is in the young person’s best interest to do so.
• Young people can ask us to keep certain parts of their information confidential.
• If the young person is making decisions about their information that puts them at risk – we may notify adults with parental rights.

 

Information Technology

 

OneNorwich Practices will use third parties to provide services that involve your information such as;

• Removal and destruction of confidential waste
• Provision of clinical systems
• Provision of connectivity and servers
• Digital dictation services
• Data analytics or warehousing (these allow us to make decisions about care or see how effectively OneNorwich Practices is run – personal data will never be sold or made available to organisations not related to your care delivery)

We have contracts in place with these third parties that prevent them from using it in any other way that instructed. These contracts also require them to maintain good standards of security to ensure your confidentiality.

Text Messaging

OneNorwich Practices may wish to use text messaging to communicate with you about OneNorwich Practices activities or your own healthcare.

We may text you;

• To send survey/questionnaires which save directly into your record
• With a link so you can send photos to the clinician of your rash or lump for example
• Ask you to update clinicians on your treatment or wellbeing
• Invite you to health screenings or vaccinations
• Send referrals letters or summaries
• Contact you if you miss an appointment e.g. at outpatients
• Contact you if you are not able to answer a phone call
• Send you test results or ask you to call to discuss your results
• Send you general public health messages about COVID 19, flu clinics, mental health or wellbeing services
• In relation to research projects, unless you have objected

You can object at any time by getting in touch with us.

If you share a mobile phone with someone, please be mindful that they may see information about your health.

For information about the providers, we use for our SMS, please see our list of providers on the main privacy policy page.

 

Information Rights

Data protection law provides you with a number of rights that OneNorwich Practices is committed to supporting you with;

Right to Access

You have the right to obtain:

• Confirmation that your information is being used, stored or shared by OneNorwich Practices
• A copy of information held about you
• We will respond to your request within one month of receipt or will tell you when it might take longer.
• We are required to validate your identity including the identity of someone making a request on your behalf

Right to Object or Withdrawn Consent

​We mainly use, store and share your information because we are permitted in order to deliver your healthcare, but you do have a right to object to us doing this.

Where we are using, storing and sharing your information based on explicit consent you have provided, you have a right to withdraw that consent at any time.

You can choose to opt out of sharing your confidential patient information for research and planning. There may still be times when your confidential patient information is used: for example, during an epidemic where there might be a risk to you or to other people’s health. You can also still consent to take part in a specific research project.

Visit Your Data Matters.

Our data protection officer will be happy to speak with you about any concerns you have.

Right to Correction

If information about you is incorrect, you are entitled to request that we correct it

There may be occasions, where we are required by law to maintain the original information – our Data Protection Officer will talk to you about this and you may request that the information is not used during this time.

We will respond to your request within one month of receipt or will tell you when it might take longer.

Right to Complain

You also have the right to make complaints and request investigations into the way your information is used. Please contact our Data Protection Officer or visit the link below for more information.

For more detailed information on your rights visit https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/

 

Keeping Your Information Safe

 

We are committed to ensuring the security and confidentiality of your information.

There are a number of ways we do this;

• Staff receive annual training about protecting and using personal data
• Policies are in place for staff to follow and are regularly reviewed
• We check that only the minimum amount of data is shared or accessed
• We use ‘smartcards’ to access systems, this helps to ensure that the right people are accessing data – people with a ‘need to know’
• We use encrypted emails and storage which would make it difficult for someone to ‘intercept’ your information
• We report and manage incidents to make sure we learn from them and improve
• We put in place contracts that require providers and suppliers to protect your data as well
• We do not send your data outside of the UK without appropriate, lawful safeguards.

 

How Long We Keep Your Information

 

In line with the NHSX Records Management Code of Practice, we will retain / store your health record for your lifetime.
When a patient dies, we will send your record to Primary Care Services England review the record and generally it will be destroyed 10 years later, unless there is a reason to keep it for longer.

Who we Share Your Information With

 

You can find a list of the organisations we may share information with by clicking here.

Below, you will see a list of the suppliers that help us deliver our services.

EMIS Web                         

SystmOne (TPP)               

NWICB                              

Restore                             

Capita                                  

City Sprint                            

ERS Medical                        

ISS pathology Couriers        

iGPR                                  

AccurX                                 

Child Health Provide            

Eclipse Solutions (Safety Reports) 

Health Diagnostics           

MJOG                             

E-Referrals                          

Cinapsis                           

Arden & Gem CSU           

NELCSU                           

RPM Business Solutions   

DA Languages                

Microsoft Teams             

Zoom                               

Clarity Team Net               

NHS Choices                             

Practice Unbound             

Silicon Practice                 

COVID-19 Risk Tool                   

Doodle Poll                       

Eventbrite                         

SmartSurvey                     

 

Our Services and Your Information 

OneNorwich Practices provides a number of services that involve the use of your personal data. We have explained each of these services below;

Home Visiting Service  

If your GP thinks you are a good fit for the OneNorwich Practices Home Visiting Service (HV), they will complete a referral within their system at the practice.

OneNorwich Practices will then be able to access this referral and can confirm whether a home visit would be appropriate.

During the visit, our clinical staff will directly update your clinical record and the GP will be able to see it. We will let your GP know what happened at the consultation and any recommendations for your care.

Vulnerable Adults Service 

OneNorwich Practices is part of a group of organisations who work together to support adults who may be at risk as require extra support such as homeless people.

The group includes the local council and mental health providers and will cooperate and share patient data in order to;

• Assess health and social care needs and provide treatment;
• Help patients make good decisions about their health;
• Help staff treat patients in the future by maintaining your medical records;
• Check the quality of patient care. 

Care Homes at Scale 

The Norwich CHAS service has been designed to deliver the specific services to patients who live in care homes.

The group includes;

• Care Homes
• OneNorwich Practices Ltd.
• GP Practices
• Norfolk and Waveney ICS
• NEAT
• Admiral Nurse service
• NNUH
• NCH&C
• Norfolk County Council
• Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust

The care home staff member will create a list of patients for discussion at the group meeting and the different members of the group will provide advice or arrange to deliver care or support.

OneNorwich Practices provides some of the administration for the group and also reviews patients and refers them to other services such as pharmacies.

NPL School Asthma Clinics 

OneNorwich Practices’ Children’s asthma nurse will hold clinics to perform annual reviews in schools, particularly in deprived areas.

The intention is to make clinics more accessible, by holding them in the schools and therefore hopefully improve the volume of families that attend.

The clinics can involve the assessment of inhaler technique. The asthma nurse will deliver the clinic and exchange information with children and relatives in relation to health and care, with information being directly entered into the laptop and into the clinical system which is visible to the GP. 

Social Prescribing

OneNorwich Practices cooperates with Norwich City Council and Voluntary Norfolk. The aim of the project is to use NCC housing data and cross reference it with health data to identify people living with frailty in poor housing.

The OneNorwich Practices Care Coordinator will contact those patients and refer them for additional support which may includes repairs performed by the council housing team, for example.