Letter - St. Catherine's College
Letter - St. Catherine's College
Letter - St. Catherine's College
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King Edward <strong>St</strong>reet Medical Practice<br />
9 King Edward <strong>St</strong>reet<br />
Oxford<br />
OX1 4JA<br />
Tel: 01865 242657<br />
Dear <strong>St</strong>udent<br />
YOUR COLLEGE DOCTOR<br />
We would like to welcome you to Oxford and your <strong>College</strong> Doctors.<br />
Our Practice is primarily a student practice and your <strong>College</strong> Doctor is a specialist in<br />
student health. We work for the National Health Service (NHS).<br />
THE NHS<br />
All students and their dependents who are studying in the UK for a year or more are<br />
entitled to register with the NHS. This is a Government-funded service, paid for by<br />
British tax-payers. As a patient, you can access the NHS through your <strong>College</strong><br />
Doctor who is a General Practitioner (GP). You cannot consult a medical specialist<br />
without going through your <strong>College</strong> Doctor first.<br />
It is a requirement of the NHS and the University that students are registered with a<br />
doctor at their University, not at home. If you need to see your home GP during the<br />
vacation, please make sure you are seen as a temporary resident otherwise you will<br />
be removed from the college doctors’ patient list and your notes will be sent away.<br />
You should register at the start of term. Please do not leave registering until you need<br />
to see a doctor. If you are not registered with us and need to be seen a private charge<br />
may apply.<br />
There are several benefits to being registered with the college doctor.<br />
• The practice can act as a gateway to all other sources of help for students.<br />
• Referral to local hospitals either NHS or privately.<br />
(Waiting times can be lengthy for some consultants).<br />
• The college doctor can liaise with college authorities at times of exams etc.<br />
(but only with the express permission of the patient – we would never<br />
discuss your medical issues with your parents, anyone in the <strong>College</strong>, your<br />
friends or your family unless you ask us to do so), (see <strong>College</strong> website for<br />
rules of confidentiality).<br />
IMMUNISATIONS<br />
It is particularly important to check whether you have had all your immunisations<br />
before you arrive. The Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine and the<br />
Meningitis C (Men C) vaccine are strongly recommended as these infections circulate<br />
rapidly in the student community. Over recent years we have had several miniepidemics<br />
in Oxford of Measles and Mumps. If you have missed any of these<br />
immunisations, we can give them to you but immunity takes time to develop.<br />
Dr Gordon Gancz, Dr Naomi Drury, Dr. Jennifer Shute<br />
www.kingedwardstreetsurgery.co.uk
MEDICATION AND REPEAT PRESCRIPTIONS<br />
If you are taking regular medication we will need to set up repeat prescriptions for<br />
you. Please make an appointment to see a GP at the Practice when you arrive in<br />
Oxford so that we can organise this.<br />
There are some medicines and treatments that are not available through the NHS and<br />
some are not on our own practice formulary i.e. we won’t prescribe them. We are<br />
happy to prescribe effective alternatives for you.<br />
N.B. A charge is made by the chemist which is currently £8.05 for each prescription<br />
item (increasing to £8.25 in April 2015). If you know you are going to require long<br />
term medication, prepayment certificates are available for – 3 months £29.10 and 12<br />
months £104.<br />
HOW TO USE THE SERVICES PROVIDED FOR YOU<br />
<strong>College</strong> Nurse<br />
The <strong>College</strong> has a <strong>College</strong> Nurse based on the premises in the morning during term<br />
time. Her service is provided free to you. She offers health advice and support as<br />
well as treatment for minor ailments. She will visit you in your <strong>College</strong> Room if you<br />
are ill and you have requested her to do so.<br />
<strong>College</strong> Doctor/ <strong>College</strong> Nurse<br />
The surgery is open Monday to Friday from 8a.m. to 6p.m. If you have a medical<br />
problem, in the first instance you should contact either the <strong>College</strong> Nurse or your<br />
<strong>College</strong> Doctor’s Practice. The telephone number for the practice is 01865 242657.<br />
If your problem occurs outside surgery hours, and it is a genuine emergency, you<br />
should contact the Out of Hours Service.<br />
Out of Hours Service<br />
This service is for genuine medical emergencies only and should be used on weekdays<br />
between the hours of 6.30p.m. and 8a.m. and from Friday night at 6.30p.m. until<br />
8a.m. on Monday morning. This service is also available if the surgery is closed for<br />
any other reason i.e. a Bank Holiday. The number to call for this service is 111. This<br />
service should not be used for routine repeat prescriptions. .<br />
Accident and Emergency Department, John Radcliffe Hospital.<br />
DO NOT USE THE ACCIDENT & EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT FOR<br />
ROUTINE MEDICAL MATTERS<br />
Wherever practicable, please contact either your <strong>College</strong> Doctor’s Practice or the Out<br />
of Hours Service before attending A&E.<br />
You should only attend this Department if there is a dire emergency which cannot<br />
wait until the <strong>College</strong> Nurse or <strong>College</strong> Doctor are back on duty and cannot be dealt<br />
with by the Out of Hours Service. Always phone the <strong>College</strong> Nurse, <strong>College</strong> Doctor<br />
or Out of Hours FIRST.<br />
IF IN DOUBT, ASK AT THE LODGE. THE STAFF ARE HAPPY TO ADVISE YOU.<br />
Dr Gordon Gancz, Dr Naomi Drury, Dr. Jennifer Shute<br />
www.kingedwardstreetsurgery.co.uk
DENTISTRY<br />
“<strong>St</strong>udental” provide dental services to all students. Appointments can be booked online<br />
at www.studental.co.uk or by telephoning 01865 484608. Please note that dental<br />
care will be charged at NHS rates, and is proportional to treatment received.<br />
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR OVERSEAS STUDENTS<br />
To qualify for free treatment on the NHS you need to be resident, in full-time<br />
education, in the UK for a minimum of twelve months.<br />
We regret that the NHS cannot provide treatment on a regular basis for a medical<br />
condition if that treatment is not essential. Treatment may have to wait until you<br />
return home. If you are referred for hospital treatment it is possible you will be<br />
charged by the hospital. Infectious diseases, sexually transmitted diseases and acute<br />
psychiatric events are treated free.<br />
Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)<br />
NHS GPs are unable to prescribe drugs for the treatment of ADHD unless the<br />
condition meets the strict criteria for the diagnosis in the UK. These criteria differ to<br />
those in the USA and some other countries. When you arrive in Oxford you may find<br />
you are not entitled to NHS prescriptions and if this is the case you will need to see a<br />
private GP or Specialist to get your prescriptions privately. We can help to arrange<br />
this for you but you will find that the consultations and prescriptions are expensive.<br />
For these reasons, it may be simplest either to bring sufficient supplies with you or to<br />
make arrangements for your medication to be sent to you from home.<br />
Your responsibilities as a patient<br />
• It is important for the practice to have a contact telephone number and email<br />
address for you. Please make sure the practice has this.<br />
• If you change your address or phone number throughout your time in Oxford<br />
please let the practice know.<br />
• Please be prompt for your appointment and cancel an appointment if it is no<br />
longer needed. Failure to cancel an appointment may prevent someone else<br />
from being seen that day.<br />
Please have a look at our website where you will find advice for minor ailments and<br />
further information about us<br />
www.kingedwardstreetsurgery.co.uk<br />
or email the practice manager Matthew Bramall on<br />
edwardst.manager@nhs.net<br />
Dr Gordon Gancz, Dr Naomi Drury, Dr. Jennifer Shute<br />
www.kingedwardstreetsurgery.co.uk
IMPORTANT CHANGES TO HOW YOUR GP<br />
HANDLES YOUR PERSONAL DATA<br />
Are you aware that your personal medical information<br />
that you share with your GP or other healthcare<br />
professional is about to be extracted and stored on a<br />
computer outside of the control of this practice where<br />
the practice will have no say on who has access to that<br />
information?<br />
Purpose of this leaflet:<br />
There are changes occurring in how we protect the confidential and personal information<br />
that we record in your medical records. The changes make it a legal obligation for us to<br />
share your information (see below). The proposed benefits of sharing identifiable data<br />
are to help to plan and monitor effective patient services, especially where patients<br />
receive care from several different organisations.<br />
We feel it is vital that you as our patient are made aware of these changes. This leaflet<br />
has been produced to help you understand what currently happens to information you<br />
share with your health professional and how that information may be used outside of<br />
your direct care.<br />
The majority of patients come to their GP Practice when they have something wrong with<br />
them. Problems discussed are usually of a personal nature and patients expect that the<br />
information they are sharing will remain confidential. This confidentiality is central to<br />
the trust between healthcare professionals and you as our patient. Without<br />
doctor‐patient confidentiality, you may be reluctant to disclose information of a personal<br />
nature that we may need to help provide you with the best possible healthcare.<br />
What we record at Our Practice<br />
Healthcare professionals in our practice record information about the care we provide.<br />
The type of information that is recorded includes the following;<br />
• Demographics, e.g. address, telephone number, e‐mail, date of birth, gender, etc.<br />
• What you tell us when you see us in consultations e.g. about your physical and<br />
psychological health and social circumstances.<br />
• Diagnoses, investigations, treatments, referrals, family background.<br />
• Social information e.g. housing status, alcohol, smoking data.<br />
• Third party sources e.g. hospital letters, A&E attendances, relatives, carers,<br />
insurance companies, solicitors.
What we already share about you:<br />
We share different types of information about our patients. These include:<br />
• Personal information about you and your illness, when needed for your direct<br />
care, e.g. referral to hospital consultants, district nurses, health visitors, midwives,<br />
counsellors, the summary care record.<br />
• Patient identifiable information to public health, in order to arrange programs for<br />
childhood immunisations, communicable diseases, cervical smears and retinal<br />
screening.<br />
• With explicit consent, personal information to other organisations outside the<br />
NHS, e.g. insurance companies, benefits agencies.<br />
• Limited information about you, if relevant, to protect you and others, e.g. to social<br />
services child protection investigations.<br />
• Under certain acts of parliament to protect you and others e.g. court order.<br />
• Summary information which is anonymised (can not identify you) e.g. quality and<br />
outcome frameworks (QoF), medical research and clinical audit.<br />
It is also important to understand that currently a limited amount of patient information<br />
or data is used mostly at local level to help design health services or undertake clinical<br />
audit. Some information is used at a national level. Information from lots of individual<br />
patients allows the NHS to build a picture of what is happening to the nation’s health. The<br />
majority of this information is anonymised before it leaves the healthcare professional, in<br />
other words no one can identify who the information relates to.<br />
How we protect your personal information:<br />
Currently, your GP is responsible for protecting your information and to do this they<br />
comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). As part of the DPA, all healthcare<br />
professionals have an obligation only to share information on a need to know basis. For<br />
further information on the DPA please follow this link;<br />
(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/contents).<br />
The physical storage of information is on secure servers which are protected by firewalls.<br />
Access to the information is by strong authenticated password. The number of people<br />
who have access to your information is limited to members of the practice team and in a<br />
few instances some pre agreed data is shared with other health care professional e.g.<br />
District Nurses but on a need to know basis.<br />
So what is changing?<br />
Under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 the Health & Social Care Information Centre<br />
(HSCIC) on behalf of NHS England (the body responsible for commissioning health services<br />
across England) will be able to extract personal and identifiable information about all<br />
patients in England. The programme, called care.data, is administered by the HSCIC using<br />
software and services provided by a private sector company.<br />
Once your identifiable information has been taken from different health organisations<br />
(GP practices, hospitals, mental health trusts) it will then be linked together to produce a<br />
complete record about you. This information will be stored on national secure servers
and will be managed by HSCIC. Although access to information will be strictly controlled,<br />
the HSCIC is planning to share this information with other organisations both NHS and<br />
private. The HSCIC will decide what information they will share and who they then share<br />
this information with.<br />
Your GP will not be able to object to this information being released to HSCIC and will no<br />
longer be able to protect your information under the DPA as stated above. Effectively,<br />
where the HSCIC is concerned the Health and Social Care Act overrules the DPA with<br />
regard to disclosure of personal information.<br />
What you need to do:<br />
As you may have seen we have succeeded in halting this procedure until the autumn.<br />
However, it seems that NHS England prefer to believe that it was the publicity campaign<br />
rather than the plan to take your data without your permission that was what<br />
fundamentally had failed. In the autumn they may come back with exactly the same plan,<br />
insisting that patients ‘opt out’ as opposed to ‘opt in’.<br />
• In the meantime it would help enormously if you could make it quite clear what<br />
your wishes are. If you are not happy for your information to be extracted<br />
directly from our computers please tell us and we will opt you out. Please<br />
relay your views by phoning the practice or emailing: edwardst.manager@nhs.net<br />
• If you are happy for NHS England to make this extraction please tell us and<br />
we will opt you in. We would emphasise that although the Government have<br />
given extra assurances that they will not use this information for any other<br />
purposes, NHS England had admitted that they cannot guarantee this information<br />
will not be stolen or otherwise used. Once your information has been extracted<br />
you cannot ‘recall’ it although you can put a stop to new information being added.<br />
• For those who do not express an opinion before the extraction begins in the<br />
‘autumn’ we still intend to opt those patients out so that they have the option later<br />
of agreeing to ‘opt in’ if they have somehow not heard of the whole care.data plan.<br />
It should be emphasised that your access to health care and the care that you receive will<br />
not be affected by either decision.<br />
Further information:<br />
The programme being implemented by the HSCIC is called “care.data”. If you enter this<br />
term into Google you will find a large amount of information on the pros and cons of the<br />
Government’s plan.<br />
As a surgery we are, of course, not against the use of large databases for essential NHS<br />
research. Our fundamental objection is that the Government and NHS England do not<br />
want to seek permission from patients first before they extract this data. We believe this<br />
infringes the patient’s basic rights to confidentiality unless they give expression<br />
permission for their data to be used.<br />
If you have any questions about this or any concerns regarding what you read in this<br />
leaflet, please contact reception at the surgery.
Your Oxfordshire Care Summary<br />
Sharing health information locally to support your care<br />
It’s your choice
Healthcare organisations are required to create records about the care<br />
they give you. In Oxfordshire, healthcare is provided by organisations<br />
such as your GP surgery, hospitals, community and mental health<br />
services and the ambulance service. This means, for example, that your<br />
GP, your hospital and your physiotherapist may each have a separate<br />
record about your care.<br />
Many records are still created on paper. However, more and more records<br />
are now being created electronically; that is to say, they can be accessed<br />
by computer. All records must be kept securely and cannot be shared with<br />
other organisations without your permission.<br />
This leaflet explains how we will, with your permission, make<br />
certain items of your healthcare information automatically<br />
available to authorised healthcare professionals involved in<br />
your treatment across Oxfordshire.<br />
Sharing Information<br />
– what happens at the moment?<br />
In order to support your care and make safe decisions, healthcare professionals<br />
may need to see information that is held by other Oxfordshire NHS<br />
organisations. For example, an emergency out-of-hours GP will need to know<br />
your relevant medical history and a hospital consultant may need to check<br />
which medications you are taking.<br />
At the moment, healthcare professionals are not able to access electronic<br />
records held by other NHS organisations and usually share information from<br />
your records by letter, fax or telephone. This can sometimes cause delays in<br />
making sure the right people receive reliable, accurate information about you<br />
and so may delay your treatment.<br />
What is the Oxfordshire Care Summary?<br />
Each healthcare organisation in Oxfordshire will continue to create a health<br />
record for you using its own system.<br />
The Oxfordshire Care Summary is a new way of sharing health information<br />
locally. It will enable authorised healthcare professionals from local NHS<br />
organisations in Oxfordshire to see a single electronic view of specific,<br />
up-to-date, clinical information from these separate systems.<br />
Why is this happening?<br />
When a healthcare professional has instant access to reliable health information<br />
about you, they will be able to deliver safer, faster treatment. It will mean fewer<br />
duplicate investigations, a reduction in the number of repeated questions to<br />
patients and will help avoid unnecessary admissions to hospital.
What information will be available<br />
in my Oxfordshire Care Summary?<br />
A standard set of information will be available to be viewed by authorised<br />
healthcare professionals in Oxfordshire. This will be pulled automatically from the<br />
various electronic care records that local NHS organisations in Oxfordshire hold<br />
about you. This information is not copied or stored in a new location; instead<br />
a temporary view is merely displayed to the healthcare professional involved<br />
in your treatment – it cannot be amended by them. The type of information<br />
viewed on the Oxfordshire Care Summary will be agreed and reviewed regularly<br />
by representatives of all healthcare organisations in Oxfordshire. For more<br />
details, see www.oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk/healthrecords<br />
Who will be able to see my<br />
Oxfordshire Care Summary?<br />
Healthcare professionals have always had a professional, ethical and legal<br />
responsibility to keep your details secure.<br />
When accessing your Oxfordshire Care Summary, they:<br />
Must be directly involved in your care;<br />
Must have your permission each time they view your records;<br />
except in exceptional circumstances e.g. in a medical emergency<br />
Must be a registered, authorised user with a secure username<br />
and password;<br />
Must only view the information required to do their job. By law,<br />
everyone working for or on behalf of the NHS must respect your<br />
confidentiality and keep all information about you secure;<br />
Will have their access electronically monitored.<br />
What is the difference between<br />
the Oxfordshire Care Summary<br />
and the Summary Care Record?<br />
The Summary Care Record is a national system which<br />
will support patient care in urgent and emergency care<br />
settings. It will be accessible by any authorised health<br />
professional across the country. It holds very limited<br />
information:<br />
medication,<br />
reactions to medicines,<br />
allergies<br />
he<br />
or<br />
es<br />
bsite<br />
Please take time to read this leaflet.<br />
You need to make a choice.<br />
hs.uk NHS Summary<br />
Care Record<br />
Your emergency<br />
care summary<br />
The Oxfordshire Care Summary will<br />
only be available to support local<br />
NHS care in Oxfordshire and<br />
will have more detailed<br />
information than in the<br />
Summary Care Record.<br />
These measures mean that your information is stored safely, stays private<br />
and can only be looked at by those healthcare professionals supporting<br />
or providing your care. The NHS Care Record Guarantee for England and<br />
the NHS Constitution both set out how the NHS should handle your<br />
records to protect your privacy. You can view these documents at<br />
www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk/security/
Your choices<br />
You can choose whether you want a national Summary Care Record and<br />
whether you want an Oxfordshire Care Summary.<br />
The local<br />
Oxfordshire<br />
Care Summary<br />
The national<br />
Summary<br />
Care Record<br />
This is what you need to do<br />
Will children have an<br />
Oxfordshire Care Summary?<br />
The same choices exist for children under 16 as for adults.<br />
If you as a parent or guardian do not wish your child to have an Oxfordshire<br />
Care Summary or a Summary Care Record, you should follow the steps on<br />
the page opposite on their behalf. If you think your child is mature enough<br />
to make their own decision, you should share this information with them.<br />
Additional opt-out forms are available at<br />
www.oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk/healthrecords<br />
or from your GP surgery<br />
<br />
YES I want one<br />
<br />
YES I want one<br />
Do nothing. This will happen automatically.<br />
<br />
YES I want one<br />
<br />
NO thanks<br />
<br />
NO thanks<br />
<br />
NO thanks<br />
<br />
YES I want one<br />
<br />
NO thanks<br />
We can arrange this for you.<br />
Phone 01865 428886, email<br />
health.records@oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk<br />
or visit ‘Your Choices’ at<br />
www.oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk/healthrecords<br />
We can arrange this for you.<br />
Phone 01865 428886, email<br />
health.records@oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk<br />
or visit ‘Your Choices’ at<br />
www.oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk/healthrecords<br />
Fill out an opt-out form for the national<br />
Summary Care Record - this will<br />
automatically mean that you will NOT have<br />
an Oxfordshire Care Summary too. All<br />
Oxfordshire residents aged 16 and over will<br />
be mailed an opt-out form at the beginning<br />
of April 2012<br />
You can change your mind at any time by contacting your GP surgery.
Where can I get more information?<br />
For the latest information about the local Oxfordshire Care Summary, please<br />
phone 01865 428886, email health.records@oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk or visit<br />
www.oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk/healthrecords<br />
If you have any questions about the national Summary mary<br />
Care Record please phone the dedicated information on<br />
line on 0300 123 3020. Or look out for this leaflet<br />
at your GP surgery.<br />
www.oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk/healthrecords<br />
he<br />
or<br />
es<br />
bsite<br />
Please take time to read this leaflet.<br />
You need to make a choice.<br />
hs.uk NHS Summary<br />
Care Record<br />
Your emergency<br />
care summary<br />
If you would like this<br />
information in a different<br />
language or format,<br />
including large print or<br />
audio, please contact<br />
01865 334641<br />
Feb 2012
Please take time to read this leaflet.<br />
You need to make a choice.<br />
NHS Summary<br />
Care Record<br />
Your emergency<br />
care summary
We (the NHS in England) are<br />
introducing a new electronic<br />
record called the Summary<br />
Care Record (SCR), which<br />
will be used to support your<br />
emergency care.<br />
Please read this leaflet carefully. It will give you<br />
information about the new Summary Care Record –<br />
your emergency care summary.<br />
Summary Care Records
Introduction to Summary Care Records<br />
Today, records are kept in all the places where you receive care.<br />
These places can usually only share information from your records<br />
by letter, email, fax or phone. At times, this can slow down<br />
treatment and sometimes information can be hard to access.<br />
We are introducing Summary Care Records to improve the safety<br />
and quality of patient care. Because the Summary Care Record<br />
is an electronic record it will give healthcare staff faster, easier<br />
access to essential information about you, to help provide you<br />
with safe treatment when you need care in an emergency or<br />
when your GP practice is closed.<br />
We are telling you about this before a Summary Care Record is<br />
made for you, so that you have time to think about your choices.<br />
You can choose to have a Summary Care Record:<br />
You do not need to do anything. This will happen automatically.<br />
Healthcare staff will ask your permission every time they look at<br />
your Summary Care Record.<br />
You can choose not to have a Summary Care Record:<br />
If you don’t want a Summary Care Record, you need to let your<br />
GP practice know by filling in and returning an opt-out form.<br />
See pages 6/7 for more information about this.<br />
2/3
About your Summary Care Record<br />
If you decide to have a Summary Care Record it will contain<br />
important information about any medicines you are taking,<br />
allergies you suffer from and any bad reactions to medicines<br />
that you have had.<br />
Giving healthcare staff access to this information can prevent<br />
mistakes being made when caring for you in an emergency or<br />
when your GP practice is closed.<br />
Your Summary Care Record will also include your name,<br />
address, date of birth and your unique NHS Number to help<br />
identify you correctly.<br />
You may want to add other details about your care to your<br />
Summary Care Record. This will only happen if you ask for the<br />
information to be included. You should discuss your wishes with<br />
the healthcare staff treating you.<br />
How will Summary Care Records<br />
help me?<br />
• Healthcare staff will have quicker access to information<br />
about any medicines you are taking, allergies you suffer<br />
from and any bad reactions to medicines you have had.<br />
• This means they can provide you with safer care during an<br />
emergency, when your GP practice is closed or when you are<br />
away from home in another part of England.<br />
• You will be able to look at your Summary Care Record at<br />
any time at a secure website called HealthSpace. You must<br />
register to use HealthSpace to keep it as secure as possible.<br />
More information about HealthSpace is available at<br />
www.healthspace.nhs.uk or from your local NHS.<br />
Summary Care Records
How will you control who can see my<br />
Summary Care Record?<br />
Healthcare staff who can see your Summary Care Record:<br />
• need to be directly involved in caring for you;<br />
• need to have an NHS Smartcard with a chip and passcode<br />
(like a bank card and PIN);<br />
• will only see the information they need to do their job; and<br />
• will have their details recorded.<br />
Healthcare staff will ask your permission every time they need<br />
to look at your Summary Care Record. If they cannot ask you,<br />
for example if you are unconscious or in certain circumstances<br />
such as a court order, healthcare staff may look at your record<br />
without asking you. If they have to do this, they will make a<br />
note on your record.<br />
How will you protect my<br />
confidentiality?<br />
By law, everyone working for us or on our behalf must respect<br />
your confidentiality and keep all information about you secure.<br />
We publish the NHS Care Record Guarantee for England. This says<br />
how the NHS will collect, store and allow access to your electronic<br />
records and your choices for how your information is stored and<br />
looked at. If you would like a copy, there is information on how<br />
to get one on the back of this leaflet.<br />
No matter how careful we are, there are always risks when<br />
information is held on computers as there is when they are<br />
held on paper. In every place we treat you there are people<br />
responsible for protecting your confidentiality. Ask your local<br />
NHS for more information.<br />
4/5
What are my choices?<br />
• You can choose to have a Summary Care Record:<br />
You do not need to do anything. This will happen<br />
automatically.<br />
• You can choose not to have a Summary Care Record:<br />
You need to let your GP practice know by filling in and<br />
returning an opt-out form.<br />
You can change your mind at any time<br />
• If you choose not to have a Summary Care Record but then<br />
change your mind later we can still make one for you.<br />
You need to let your GP practice know.<br />
• If you choose after we have made your Summary Care Record<br />
that you do not want it, you need to tell your GP practice. We<br />
will make sure that healthcare staff who try to look at your<br />
Summary Care Record will not be able to. We will only make<br />
your record available again if whoever wants to see it asks in<br />
writing and investigation has found it necessary.<br />
• You can ask to have your record deleted, but that may not be<br />
possible if the record has already been used to give you care.<br />
Children and the Summary Care Record<br />
Children will automatically have a Summary Care Record<br />
made for them.<br />
If you do not want your child to have a Summary Care Record<br />
you will need to fill in an opt-out form on behalf of your<br />
child and return it to your child’s GP practice. In some<br />
circumstances your GP may feel it is in your child’s best<br />
interests to have a Summary Care Record. For example,<br />
if your child has a serious allergy that healthcare staff<br />
treating your child should know about.<br />
Summary Care Records
What do I do now?<br />
If you are happy for us to make a Summary Care Record for you,<br />
you do not need to do anything, we will automatically make<br />
one for you.<br />
If you do not want us to make a Summary Care Record for you,<br />
please fill in an opt-out form and return it to your GP practice.<br />
Opt-out forms are available at www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk/options<br />
or your GP practice, or you can ask us to send you one by phoning<br />
the Summary Care Record Information Line on 0300 123 3020.<br />
Where can I get more information?<br />
For more information about Summary Care Records and your choices:<br />
• phone the Summary Care Record Information Line on<br />
0300 123 3020;<br />
• contact your local Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS)<br />
www.pals.nhs.uk; or<br />
• visit www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk.<br />
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You can get a copy of the<br />
‘The NHS Care Record<br />
Guarantee for England’ or<br />
leaflets in other languages<br />
and formats from our website<br />
at www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk<br />
The Summary Care Record<br />
Information Line has translation<br />
and text phone services.<br />
Please keep this leaflet safe<br />
4706 English (November 2010)