Confidentiality

All practice staff have signed a confidentiality statement and have been trained on confidentiality issues.

Your Personal Health Information

To give you the care you need, we keep information about your visits to surgery staff involved in your care or treatment. These could be visits to a GP or practice nurse, or a visit by a health visitor. We keep information about your health and lifestyle and any illnesses, tests, prescriptions and other treatments that you have had. When this information contains things that can identify you, such as your name, address, postcode or date of birth, it's called your personal health information. Your personal health information is stored securely on paper or on computer, or both.

We sometimes share your personal health information with other organisations involved in your healthcare. We only share relevant information. For example, when your GP refers you to a specialist at the hospital we send relevant details about you in the referral letter and receive information back from them about you. We sometimes share information including your name, address and date of birth so that you can be invited for health screening.

We also need to use your personal health information for administrative tasks, but we only use relevant information. So that we can be paid for services we give you, we share information about you with relevant NHS organisations in Scotland. These organisations help to check that public money is being spent properly. The surgery must allow these checks to be done and we need to share your information to be able to give you healthcare services.

Sometimes, we might use information about you and other patients' to help improve our services or to check that they are up to standard. Whenever we do this we will make sure that as far as possible we don't share any information that could identify you.

The surgery is sometimes involved in health research and in teaching student nurses, doctors and other NHS staff. We will not use or share your personal health information for research or teaching unless you have given your permission.

Where you need a service that we give jointly with your local authority, we will ask your permission before giving them your information.

Sometimes the law requires us to pass on information to other organisations. For example, we have to report all births, deaths and certain diseases or crimes. The law sets out how we can use your personal health information. The Data Protection Act gives you rights about how your personal information is used, including a right to see the information we hold about you.

All NHS staff have a legal duty to keep information about you confidential and they follow a staff Code of Practice on Protecting Patient Confidentiality. Further information about this can be found at www.show.scot.nhs.uk/confidentiality or www.nhsis.co.uk/confidentiality

If you have any questions about how we use your personal health information, or would like to see your health records please contact our Practice Manager. You can also read the leaflets, 'Confidentiality - It's Your Right. How the NHS protects your personal health information' and 'How to see your Health Records'. These are available from your dental or GP surgery, hospital and other places where you receive NHS care and from your local branch of the Citizens' Advice Bureau, your local health council and from NHS 24 - by calling 111.

If you have any queries about issues in relation to Data Protection or Confidentiality, contact the Data Protection Officer for your NHS Board. If he or she is unable to resolve the issue, then more advice can be sought from the Caldicott Guardian for your NHS Board. NHS Fife is a party to the General Medical Services Contract under which this Practice operates. Their address is – NHS Fife, Cameron House, Cameron Hospital, LEVEN, Fife Telephone 01592 712812 and details of primary medical services in the area may be obtained from them.