Confidentiality & Medical Records

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.

Fair Processing Notice

Hospital attendances are obtained from the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) and matched to our data to create a "risk profile" about you. This is used to tailor appropriate services around your patient needs.

All information will be handled confidentially and kept secure.
You have a right to object; please let a Receptionist know in writing if you wish to opt out of sharing your data, but please be aware this will restrict some aspects of "Risk Stratification" and "scoring" a patient's risk of being admitted to hospital.

Telephone Call Recording

Telephone calls to and from patients to healthcare organisations may be recorded for legitimate reasons, for example, for medico-legal purposes, staff training, and audit, provided all reasonable steps are taken to inform callers that their call will be recorded. Ramsbury and Wanborough Surgery’s telephone system records all calls in and out of the Practice for training and monitoring purposes. The recordings cannot be accessed by any unauthorised personnel and requests to access the call recordings have to go through the Management Team for case by case authorisation. Recordings of calls made and received by Ramsbury and Wanborough Surgery may also be used to support the learning and development of our staff and to improve the service we provide to our patients. They may also be used when reviewing incidents, compliments or complaints. Call recordings will be managed in the same way as all other personal information processed by us and in line with all current legislation.

Freedom of Information

Information about the General Practitioners 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.

Access to Records

In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Access to Health Records Act, patients may request to see their medical records. Such requests should be made through the practice manager and may be subject to an administration charge. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.