The practice is registered under the Data Protection Act 1998. When you register, you will be asked for information about yourself so that you can receive the appropriate care and treatment. This information is kept with details of your health and treatment provided, so that the practice can ensure that the care you receive is appropriate and consistent with your medical history. The practice may pass information to other organisations and strict conditions must be complied with before information is released.
GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION
The general data protection regulation (GDPR) is a new law that determines how your personal data is processed and kept safe, and the legal rights that you have in relation to your own data.
The regulation applies from 25 May 2018, and will apply even after the UK leave the EU.
WHAT GDPR WILL MEAN FOR PATTIENTS
The GDPR sets out the key principles about processing data, for staff or patients:
- Data must be prcessed lawfully, fairly and transparently.
- it must be collected for specific, explicitand legitimate purposes.
- It must be limited to what is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed.
- information must be held securely.
- It can only be retained for as long as is necessary for the reasons it was collected.
There are also stronger rights for the patients regarding the information that practices hold about them.
These include:
- Being informed about how there data is used.
- Patients to have access to there own data
- Patients can ask to have incorrect information change.
- Restrict how their data is used
- Move their patient datafrom one health organisation to another
- The right to object to their patient information being processed 9in certain circumstances).
What is GDPR?
GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulations and is a new piece of legislation that will supersede the Data Protection Act. It will not only apply to the UK and EU; it covers anywhere in the world in which data about EU citizens is processed.
The GDPR is similar to the Data Protection Act (DPA) 1998 (which the practice already complies with), but strengthens many of the DPA’s principles. The main changes are:
- Practices must comply with subject access requests
- Where we needs your consent to process data, this consent must be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous
- There are new, special protections for patient data
- The Information Commissioner’s Office must be notified within 72 hours of a data breach
- Higher fines for data breaches – up to 20 million euros
What is ‘patient data’?
Patient data is information that relates to a single person, such as his/her diagnosis, name, age, earlier medical history etc.
What is consent?
Consent is permission from a patient – an individual’s consent is defined as “any freely given specific and informed indication of his wishes by which the data subject signifies his agreement to personal data relating to him being processed.”
The changes in GDPR mean that we must get explicit permission from patients when using their data. This is to protect your right to privacy, and we may ask you to provide consent to do certain things, like contact you or record certain information about you for your clinical records.
Individuals also have the right to withdraw their consent at any time.