You can choose to stop your confidential patient information being used for research and planning. Your confidential patient information will still be used for your individual care.

Further information from NHS Digital can be found here.

NHS Digital – Opting-out of sharing your confidential patient information: https://digital.nhs.uk/about-nhs-digital/our-work/keeping-patient-data-safe/how-we-look-after-your-health-and-care-information/your-information-choices/opting-out-of-sharing-your-confidential-patient-information

There are two opt-outs available to patients of the NHS.

• Type 1 – Opting out of your GP record confidential information being shared outside of your GP practice for anything other than your individual care
• Type 2 – Opting out of NHS Digital sharing your wider health record (from hospital or other NHS organisations) for anything other than your individual care – this is now called the National Data Opt-Out

Type 1: To Opt-out of your GP confidential record being shared for anything other than your individual care please complete the below form and send it to the practice. The practice will then record your preference and scan the form into your clinical record. (A separate form is required per patient or dependent)

Type1Opt-out-formDownload

Type 2: Can no longer be requested via your GP and can only be requested via NHS Digital either online, on the phone or by email. All the information required to contact NHS Digital is here:

https://www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters/manage-your-choice/

Increasingly, patient medical data is shared e.g. between GP surgeries and District Nursing, in order to give clinicians access to the most up to date information when attending patients.

The systems we operate require that any sharing of medical information is consented to by patients beforehand. Patients must consent to sharing of the data held by a health provider out to other health providers and must also consent to which of the other providers can access their data.

e.g. it may be necessary to share data held in GP practices with district nurses but the local podiatry department would not need to see it to undertake their work. In this case, patients would allow the surgery to share their data, they would allow the district nurses to access it but they would not allow access by the podiatry department. In this way access to patient data is under patients' control and can be shared on a 'need to know' basis.

There is a new Central NHS Computer System called the Summary Care Record (SCR). The Summary Care Record is meant to help emergency doctors and nurses help you when you contact them when the surgery is closed. Initially, it will contain just your medications and allergies.

Later on as the central NHS computer system develops, (known as the ‘Summary Care Record’ – SCR), other staff who work in the NHS will be able to access it along with information from hospitals, out of hours services, and specialists letters that may be added as well.

Your information will be extracted from practices such as ours and held on central NHS databases.   

As with all new systems there are pros and cons to think about. When you speak to an emergency doctor you might overlook something that is important and if they have access to your medical record it might avoid mistakes or problems, although even then, you should be asked to give your consent each time a member of NHS Staff wishes to access your record, unless you are medically unable to do so.

On the other hand, you may have strong views about sharing your personal information and wish to keep your information at the level of this practice. Connecting for Health (CfH), the government agency responsible for the Summary Care Record have agreed with doctors’ leaders that new patients registering with this practice should be able to decide whether or not their information is uploaded to the Central NHS Computer System.

For existing patients it is different in that it is assumed that you want your record uploaded to the Central NHS Computer System unless you actively opt out.