Confidentiality

Please read our Privacy Notice

Last updated Oct 2024 (first published 25/5/18 under GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation)

You can be assured that anything you discuss with any member of the surgery staff, whether doctor, nurse or receptionist, will remain confidential. Even if you are under 16, nothing will be said to anyone, including parents, other family members, care workers or teachers, without your permission. The only reason why we might want to consider passing on confidential information without your permission would be to protect either you or someone else from serious harm. In this situation, we would always try to discuss this with you first.

If you have any worries or queries about confidentiality, please ask a member of staff.

We have side rooms available away from reception if required in order to discuss matters of a confidential nature.

We keep patient records on our EmisWeb clinical system.  We advise you read our Patient Record page - this includes details about sharing of your data and how you can opt out if you have concerns on this matter.

You can request access to your medical record through our Online Access provision

We assume consent for contact by SMS (text message) and email where you have provided this information, or you can explicitly consent or dissent to electronic contact.  Please ensure your contact details are up to date at all times.  We will only text or email messages that are relevant to your ongoing healthcare, with the minimum of personal content.  If you choose to opt out of receiving SMS text messages, the opt out will not apply to appointment reminders.

Confidentiality - Young people aged 13 years and above

 
Respecting patient confidentiality is an essential part of good care; this applies when the patient is a child or young person as well as when the patient is an adult. Without the trust that confidentiality brings, children and young people might not seek medical care and advice, or they might not tell us all the facts needed to provide good care.
 
Young people aged 13 and above with capacity have the legal right to access their own health records and can allow or prevent access by others, including their parents. A child might of course achieve capacity earlier or later. In any event you should usually let children access their own health records. But they should not be given access to information that would cause them serious harm or any information about another person without the other person’s consent.
 
Parents can access their child’s medical records if the child or young person consents, or lacks capacity, and it does not go against the child’s best interests. If the records contain information given by the child or young person in confidence, we would not disclose the information without the child’s consent.