Data Protection Act & Confidentiality
This practice had adopted the British Medical Association Model Publication Scheme for General Practitioners in Scotland in order to comply with section 23 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. Most of the information required under this act is provided in the Practice Leaflet, but for a full copy of our Publication, please contact Reception.
Your medical record is confidential
We do, however, share information among health professionals, where it is felt to be in your interest as a patient, for this to happen.
For example, when GPs refer patients to outpatient clinics, it is vital that they give as full a medical history as possible. Similarly, if a Hospital Doctor writes to your GP, it is important that new diagnoses or results of investigations are included in the letter.
With increasingly shared care between GPs, Hospital Doctors, Nurses, and Allied Health Professionals it is necessary to share information, such as lab results, or the medication you are taking, so that where possible, relevant data can be available at any place where you receive care, to avoid duplication of investigations, and so that the Health Professional you are seeing is able to give you best care.
General Practices, Secondary Care, Managed Clinical Networks, and the Health Board need to keep Disease Registers (lists of patients with the same condition), so that call and recall systems can operate, and that shared care can be effectively and efficiently co-ordinated.
Sometimes data will be used for research or statistical purposes relating to healthcare planning, but in these circumstances individual patients will not be identifiable without their consent.
If data about you is used for education or training, then where possible, it will be anonymised, and if this is not possible, then your consent will be required before information is used for this purpose.
Finally, as part of Quality Assurance, it is sometimes necessary to check individual records to ensure that agreed standards of care are being met.
Under no circumstances is information about you shared with third parties who do not directly contribute to , or support the delivery and planning of , your health care unless your consent has been obtained.
In these circumstances, under the Data Protection Act 1998, we are not obliged to obtain your explicit consent for sharing relevant information, but if you do have specific requests for some aspects of your health record to remain confidential from some parts of the NHS, please let us know, and we shall take action to comply with your wishes.
This practice has adopted the British Medical Association Model Publication Scheme for General Practitioners in Scotland in order to comply with section 23 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. Most of the information required under this act is provided in the Practice Leaflet, but for a full copy of our Publication, please contact Reception.