Information about you and the care you receive is shared, in a secure system, by healthcare staff to support your treatment and care.
The NHS can use this information to plan and improve services for all patients and they would like to link information from all the different places where you receive care, such as your GP, hospital and community service, to help provide a full picture. This will allow them to compare the care you received in one area against the care you received in another, so they can see what has worked best.
Information such as your date of birth, postcode, NHS number and gender, but not your name, will be used to link your records in a secure system and will be managed by the Health & Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC). Although access to information will be strictly controlled, the HSCIC is planning to share this information with other organisations, both NHS and private. Your GP will not be able to object to this information being released to HSCIC and will no longer be able to protect your information under the Data Protection Act.
However, you have the right to prevent confidential information about you from being extracted.
You have a choice. If you are happy for your information to be used in this way you do not have to do anything. If you have concerns or wish to prevent this from happening, please read the attached information below. If you do not wish your information to be extracted you MUST inform the surgery and we will then block the uploading of your identifiable and personal information to HSCIC. In this case, please complete the Care Data Opt Out Form and return this to the surgery as soon as possible.
We need to make sure that you know this is happening and the choices you have.
Important_Changes_leaflet.doc
Care_Data_Opt_Out_Form_A4.doc
You can find out more on the NHS England Care Data website