Confidentiality & Medical Records
The practice complies with data protection and access to medical records legislation. Identifiable information about you will be shared with others in the following circumstances:
- To provide further medical treatment for you e.g. from district nurses and hospital services.
- To help you get other services e.g. from the social work department. This requires your consent.
- When we have a duty to others e.g. in child protection cases anonymised patient information will also be used at local and national level to help the Health Board and Government plan services e.g. for diabetic care.
If you do not wish anonymous information about you to be used in such a way, please let us know.
Reception and administration staff require access to your medical records in order to do their jobs. These members of staff are bound by the same rules of confidentiality as the medical staff.
Freedom of Information
Information about the General Practitioners and the practice required for disclosure under this act can be made available to the public. All requests for such information should be made to the practice manager.
Access to Records
In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations patients may request to see their medical records. Such requests should be made through the practice manager and no information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.
The Mill Practice Privacy Notice
Call Recording Policy
This policy outlines the practice’s call recording process. The purpose of call recording is to provide a record of incoming and outgoing calls which can:
• Identify practice staff training needs
• Protect practice staff from nuisance or abusive calls
• Establish facts relating to incoming/outgoing calls made (e.g. complaints)
• Identify any issues in practice processes with a view to improving them
Telephone consultations are a clinical event and are recorded in the clinical record in the same manner as face to face consultations. This will generally be via a standard code and text entry using the clinical system and will be retained for the same period as the remainder of the medical record
Purpose
The purpose of this policy is to ensure that call recording is managed in line with DPA & Data Retention requirements. The practice will make every reasonable effort to advise callers that their call may be recorded and for what purpose the recording may be used. This will normally be via a pre-recorded message within the telephone system, and an information notice on our waiting room information screen, practice website and practice leaflet. The voice file will be stored within the telephone system to which the same rules of confidentiality will apply.
Where a patient requests to listen to a recording then this should be allowed within the general provisional of data subject access under the Data Protection Act 2018.
Scope
This policy applies to all practice staff including any contracted or temporary workers.
All calls via the telephone systems used in the practice will be recorded, including:
• All external incoming calls
• All external outgoing calls made by practice staff
• All transferred calls
Recording will automatically stop when the practice staff member terminates the call.
Playback / Monitoring of Recorded Calls
Monitoring of the call recordings will be undertaken by the partners and/or senior management (General Manager, Office Manager/I.T. Manager). Any playback of recordings will take place in a private setting and where applicable, individuals should be given the opportunity to listen to the relevant recordings to receive feedback and developmental support.
All recordings and call recording equipment will be stored securely, and access to these will be controlled and managed by senior management.
Recordings will be accessed by logging into a dedicated, password protected computer system.
Calls will be retained by the Practice for up to 12 months.
Confidentiality
The Data Protection Act allows access to information that is held about individuals and their personal data. This includes recorded telephone calls.
Requests for copies of telephone conversations can be made under the Data Protection Act as a “Subject Access Request”. After assessing whether the information can be released, the requestor can be invited to the practice premises to hear the recording. The right to be forgotten does not override legal and compliance obligations.
If there is a request from an external body relating to the detection or prevention of a crime (e.g. police), then requests for information should be directed to the General Manager.
Under GDPR, organisations are prohibited from recording the personal conversations of staff, even with consent, and therefore need to ensure that while business calls are recorded, personal calls always remain private.
Complaints
We take any complaints made by patients very seriously and we have developed a procedure for dealing with such complaints so that they can be investigated as promptly and thoroughly as possible within the practice.
Full details of the complaints procedure can be download here:
The Mill Practice Complaints Handling Procedure
NHS Tayside has a separate complaints and advice team who can be contacted on Freephone: 0800 027 5507 or email complaints.tayside@nhs.net. This team will be able to give impartial advice and support but it must be made clear that NHS Tayside cannot assume responsibility for either the circumstances leading to the complaint or for the resolution of the complaint as this rests solely with the Mill practice.
Violence Policy
The NHS operate a zero tolerance policy with regard to violence and abuse and the practice has the right to remove violent patients from the list with immediate effect in order to safeguard practice staff, patients and other persons. Violence in this context includes actual or threatened physical violence or verbal abuse which leads to fear for a person’s safety. In this situation we will notify the patient in writing of their removal from the list and record in the patient’s medical records the fact of the removal and the circumstances leading to it.
Prescribing for fear of flying or medical procedures policy
The policy below gives details on what the practice will do to help alleviate any fear of flying or medical procedures.
Fear of flying or medical procedures prescribing policy