The purpose of the NHS is to provide you with the highest quality of health care. To help us achieve this, the Trust must keep records about your health, treatment and the care we have provided or plan to provide. These records are called your health records and may be stored in paper format or electronically.
The Trust is committed to ensuring that your information is:
- used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way,
- collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes,
- relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes,
- accurate and kept up to date,
- kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about, and
- kept securely.
Your information will be used to manage the care you receive and may include information from other health organisations such as your GP. We may share your data with other NHS organisations to:
- review the care we provide to our patients to ensure it is of the highest standard and quality
- protect the health of the general public
- manage the local and national health service and ensure services can meet future patient needs
- investigate patient queries, complaints and legal claims
- ensure the Trust receives payment for the care you receive
- prepare statistics on the Trust’s and wider NHS performance
- audit NHS accounts and services to ensure we are doing the right thing
- undertake health research and development
- helping to train and educate healthcare professionals
For these purposes we use non identifiable data whenever possible.
Everyone working within the health and social care service has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential. There will be certain circumstances where we may need to share your data with others including:
- with our trusted partners to provide you with care
- where you have given us specific permission
- when we have to share by law
- in situations were we have good reason to believe that failing to share the information will put your or someone else at risk of serious harm or abuse
- we hold information that is essential to prevent, detect, investigate or punish a serious crime
- the sharing of the information is in the wider public interest e.g. in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic
- the use of state of the art technologies such as the use of robotics or artificial intelligence software
- to communicate better and more efficiently with our patients such as the delivery of our digital letters and SMS reminders solution – for further information on this please click here.
Your Rights
- You have the right to be informed about what we do with your data hence our Privacy Notice.
- You have the right of access to information we hold about you. If you want to see your records please speak to a member of staff involved in your care or follow the instructions here.
- You have a right to rectification and can ask for incorrect data about you to be corrected.
- In limited circumstances you have the right to erasure.
- In some circumstances you have the right to data portability.
- You have the right to object to the processing of your data in certain situations.
- You have the right to not be subject to automated decision making and profiling
You have the right to opt out of your information being used for anything outside of direct care. More information about how to do this can be found here. The Trust is complaint with the National Opt Out rules.
You have the right to opt out of your information being used for anything outside of direct care. More information about how to do this can be found here. The Trust is complaint with the National Opt Out rules.
If you would like to know more about how we use your information or if you do not wish to have your information used in any of the ways described in this leaflet, please raise with a member of staff involved in your care or email our Data Protection Officer at dgft.dpo@nhs.net. Your care will not be affected.
To view a more detailed privacy notice please visit https://www.dgft.nhs.uk/about-us/patient-privacy-and-accessibility/ .
Policies relating to Data Protection, Confidentiality, Information Governance and Freedom Of information are available on request from dgft.foi@nhs.net.
The Trust carries out Data Privacy Impact Assessments on a regular basis where the Trust is going to do something different or share with a new third party. Access to a list of DPIA’s and potential access to documentation is available via dgft.foi@nhs.net.
This notice may change from time to time. It was last updated June 2023.
