Letter - St. Catherine's College

King Edward Street Medical Practice
9 King Edward Street
Oxford
OX1 4JA
Tel: 01865 242657
Dear Student
YOUR COLLEGE DOCTOR
We would like to welcome you to Oxford and your College Doctors.
Our Practice is primarily a student practice and your College Doctor is a specialist in
student health. We work for the National Health Service (NHS).
THE NHS
All students and their dependents who are studying in the UK for a year or more are
entitled to register with the NHS. This is a Government-funded service, paid for by
British tax-payers. As a patient, you can access the NHS through your College
Doctor who is a General Practitioner (GP). You cannot consult a medical specialist
without going through your College Doctor first.
It is a requirement of the NHS and the University that students are registered with a
doctor at their University, not at home. If you need to see your home GP during the
vacation, please make sure you are seen as a temporary resident otherwise you will
be removed from the college doctors’ patient list and your notes will be sent away.
You should register at the start of term. Please do not leave registering until you need
to see a doctor. If you are not registered with us and need to be seen a private charge
may apply.
There are several benefits to being registered with the college doctor.
• The practice can act as a gateway to all other sources of help for students.
• Referral to local hospitals either NHS or privately.
(Waiting times can be lengthy for some consultants).
• The college doctor can liaise with college authorities at times of exams etc.
(but only with the express permission of the patient – we would never
discuss your medical issues with your parents, anyone in the College, your
friends or your family unless you ask us to do so), (see College website for
rules of confidentiality).
IMMUNISATIONS
It is particularly important to check whether you have had all your immunisations
before you arrive. The Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine and the
Meningitis C (Men C) vaccine are strongly recommended as these infections circulate
rapidly in the student community. Over recent years we have had several miniepidemics
in Oxford of Measles and Mumps. If you have missed any of these
immunisations, we can give them to you but immunity takes time to develop.
Dr Gordon Gancz, Dr Naomi Drury, Dr. Jennifer Shute
www.kingedwardstreetsurgery.co.uk

MEDICATION AND REPEAT PRESCRIPTIONS
If you are taking regular medication we will need to set up repeat prescriptions for
you. Please make an appointment to see a GP at the Practice when you arrive in
Oxford so that we can organise this.
There are some medicines and treatments that are not available through the NHS and
some are not on our own practice formulary i.e. we won’t prescribe them. We are
happy to prescribe effective alternatives for you.
N.B. A charge is made by the chemist which is currently £8.05 for each prescription
item (increasing to £8.25 in April 2015). If you know you are going to require long
term medication, prepayment certificates are available for – 3 months £29.10 and 12
months £104.
HOW TO USE THE SERVICES PROVIDED FOR YOU
College Nurse
The College has a College Nurse based on the premises in the morning during term
time. Her service is provided free to you. She offers health advice and support as
well as treatment for minor ailments. She will visit you in your College Room if you
are ill and you have requested her to do so.
College Doctor/ College Nurse
The surgery is open Monday to Friday from 8a.m. to 6p.m. If you have a medical
problem, in the first instance you should contact either the College Nurse or your
College Doctor’s Practice. The telephone number for the practice is 01865 242657.
If your problem occurs outside surgery hours, and it is a genuine emergency, you
should contact the Out of Hours Service.
Out of Hours Service
This service is for genuine medical emergencies only and should be used on weekdays
between the hours of 6.30p.m. and 8a.m. and from Friday night at 6.30p.m. until
8a.m. on Monday morning. This service is also available if the surgery is closed for
any other reason i.e. a Bank Holiday. The number to call for this service is 111. This
service should not be used for routine repeat prescriptions. .
Accident and Emergency Department, John Radcliffe Hospital.
DO NOT USE THE ACCIDENT & EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT FOR
ROUTINE MEDICAL MATTERS
Wherever practicable, please contact either your College Doctor’s Practice or the Out
of Hours Service before attending A&E.
You should only attend this Department if there is a dire emergency which cannot
wait until the College Nurse or College Doctor are back on duty and cannot be dealt
with by the Out of Hours Service. Always phone the College Nurse, College Doctor
or Out of Hours FIRST.
IF IN DOUBT, ASK AT THE LODGE. THE STAFF ARE HAPPY TO ADVISE YOU.
Dr Gordon Gancz, Dr Naomi Drury, Dr. Jennifer Shute
www.kingedwardstreetsurgery.co.uk

DENTISTRY
“Studental” provide dental services to all students. Appointments can be booked online
at www.studental.co.uk or by telephoning 01865 484608. Please note that dental
care will be charged at NHS rates, and is proportional to treatment received.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR OVERSEAS STUDENTS
To qualify for free treatment on the NHS you need to be resident, in full-time
education, in the UK for a minimum of twelve months.
We regret that the NHS cannot provide treatment on a regular basis for a medical
condition if that treatment is not essential. Treatment may have to wait until you
return home. If you are referred for hospital treatment it is possible you will be
charged by the hospital. Infectious diseases, sexually transmitted diseases and acute
psychiatric events are treated free.
Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
NHS GPs are unable to prescribe drugs for the treatment of ADHD unless the
condition meets the strict criteria for the diagnosis in the UK. These criteria differ to
those in the USA and some other countries. When you arrive in Oxford you may find
you are not entitled to NHS prescriptions and if this is the case you will need to see a
private GP or Specialist to get your prescriptions privately. We can help to arrange
this for you but you will find that the consultations and prescriptions are expensive.
For these reasons, it may be simplest either to bring sufficient supplies with you or to
make arrangements for your medication to be sent to you from home.
Your responsibilities as a patient
• It is important for the practice to have a contact telephone number and email
address for you. Please make sure the practice has this.
• If you change your address or phone number throughout your time in Oxford
please let the practice know.
• Please be prompt for your appointment and cancel an appointment if it is no
longer needed. Failure to cancel an appointment may prevent someone else
from being seen that day.
Please have a look at our website where you will find advice for minor ailments and
further information about us
www.kingedwardstreetsurgery.co.uk
or email the practice manager Matthew Bramall on
edwardst.manager@nhs.net
Dr Gordon Gancz, Dr Naomi Drury, Dr. Jennifer Shute
www.kingedwardstreetsurgery.co.uk

IMPORTANT CHANGES TO HOW YOUR GP
HANDLES YOUR PERSONAL DATA
Are you aware that your personal medical information
that you share with your GP or other healthcare
professional is about to be extracted and stored on a
computer outside of the control of this practice where
the practice will have no say on who has access to that
information?
Purpose of this leaflet:
There are changes occurring in how we protect the confidential and personal information
that we record in your medical records. The changes make it a legal obligation for us to
share your information (see below). The proposed benefits of sharing identifiable data
are to help to plan and monitor effective patient services, especially where patients
receive care from several different organisations.
We feel it is vital that you as our patient are made aware of these changes. This leaflet
has been produced to help you understand what currently happens to information you
share with your health professional and how that information may be used outside of
your direct care.
The majority of patients come to their GP Practice when they have something wrong with
them. Problems discussed are usually of a personal nature and patients expect that the
information they are sharing will remain confidential. This confidentiality is central to
the trust between healthcare professionals and you as our patient. Without
doctor‐patient confidentiality, you may be reluctant to disclose information of a personal
nature that we may need to help provide you with the best possible healthcare.
What we record at Our Practice
Healthcare professionals in our practice record information about the care we provide.
The type of information that is recorded includes the following;
• Demographics, e.g. address, telephone number, e‐mail, date of birth, gender, etc.
• What you tell us when you see us in consultations e.g. about your physical and
psychological health and social circumstances.
• Diagnoses, investigations, treatments, referrals, family background.
• Social information e.g. housing status, alcohol, smoking data.
• Third party sources e.g. hospital letters, A&E attendances, relatives, carers,
insurance companies, solicitors.

What we already share about you:
We share different types of information about our patients. These include:
• Personal information about you and your illness, when needed for your direct
care, e.g. referral to hospital consultants, district nurses, health visitors, midwives,
counsellors, the summary care record.
• Patient identifiable information to public health, in order to arrange programs for
childhood immunisations, communicable diseases, cervical smears and retinal
screening.
• With explicit consent, personal information to other organisations outside the
NHS, e.g. insurance companies, benefits agencies.
• Limited information about you, if relevant, to protect you and others, e.g. to social
services child protection investigations.
• Under certain acts of parliament to protect you and others e.g. court order.
• Summary information which is anonymised (can not identify you) e.g. quality and
outcome frameworks (QoF), medical research and clinical audit.
It is also important to understand that currently a limited amount of patient information
or data is used mostly at local level to help design health services or undertake clinical
audit. Some information is used at a national level. Information from lots of individual
patients allows the NHS to build a picture of what is happening to the nation’s health. The
majority of this information is anonymised before it leaves the healthcare professional, in
other words no one can identify who the information relates to.
How we protect your personal information:
Currently, your GP is responsible for protecting your information and to do this they
comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). As part of the DPA, all healthcare
professionals have an obligation only to share information on a need to know basis. For
further information on the DPA please follow this link;
(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/contents).
The physical storage of information is on secure servers which are protected by firewalls.
Access to the information is by strong authenticated password. The number of people
who have access to your information is limited to members of the practice team and in a
few instances some pre agreed data is shared with other health care professional e.g.
District Nurses but on a need to know basis.
So what is changing?
Under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 the Health & Social Care Information Centre
(HSCIC) on behalf of NHS England (the body responsible for commissioning health services
across England) will be able to extract personal and identifiable information about all
patients in England. The programme, called care.data, is administered by the HSCIC using
software and services provided by a private sector company.
Once your identifiable information has been taken from different health organisations
(GP practices, hospitals, mental health trusts) it will then be linked together to produce a
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,
the HSCIC is planning to share this information with other organisations both NHS and
private. The HSCIC will decide what information they will share and who they then share
this information with.
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 DPA as stated above. Effectively,
where the HSCIC is concerned the Health and Social Care Act overrules the DPA with
regard to disclosure of personal information.
What you need to do:
As you may have seen we have succeeded in halting this procedure until the autumn.
However, it seems that NHS England prefer to believe that it was the publicity campaign
rather than the plan to take your data without your permission that was what
fundamentally had failed. In the autumn they may come back with exactly the same plan,
insisting that patients ‘opt out’ as opposed to ‘opt in’.
• In the meantime it would help enormously if you could make it quite clear what
your wishes are. If you are not happy for your information to be extracted
directly from our computers please tell us and we will opt you out. Please
relay your views by phoning the practice or emailing: edwardst.manager@nhs.net
• If you are happy for NHS England to make this extraction please tell us and
we will opt you in. We would emphasise that although the Government have
given extra assurances that they will not use this information for any other
purposes, NHS England had admitted that they cannot guarantee this information
will not be stolen or otherwise used. Once your information has been extracted
you cannot ‘recall’ it although you can put a stop to new information being added.
• For those who do not express an opinion before the extraction begins in the
‘autumn’ we still intend to opt those patients out so that they have the option later
of agreeing to ‘opt in’ if they have somehow not heard of the whole care.data plan.
It should be emphasised that your access to health care and the care that you receive will
not be affected by either decision.
Further information:
The programme being implemented by the HSCIC is called “care.data”. If you enter this
term into Google you will find a large amount of information on the pros and cons of the
Government’s plan.
As a surgery we are, of course, not against the use of large databases for essential NHS
research. Our fundamental objection is that the Government and NHS England do not
want to seek permission from patients first before they extract this data. We believe this
infringes the patient’s basic rights to confidentiality unless they give expression
permission for their data to be used.
If you have any questions about this or any concerns regarding what you read in this
leaflet, please contact reception at the surgery.

Your Oxfordshire Care Summary
Sharing health information locally to support your care
It’s your choice

Healthcare organisations are required to create records about the care
they give you. In Oxfordshire, healthcare is provided by organisations
such as your GP surgery, hospitals, community and mental health
services and the ambulance service. This means, for example, that your
GP, your hospital and your physiotherapist may each have a separate
record about your care.
Many records are still created on paper. However, more and more records
are now being created electronically; that is to say, they can be accessed
by computer. All records must be kept securely and cannot be shared with
other organisations without your permission.
This leaflet explains how we will, with your permission, make
certain items of your healthcare information automatically
available to authorised healthcare professionals involved in
your treatment across Oxfordshire.
Sharing Information
– what happens at the moment?
In order to support your care and make safe decisions, healthcare professionals
may need to see information that is held by other Oxfordshire NHS
organisations. For example, an emergency out-of-hours GP will need to know
your relevant medical history and a hospital consultant may need to check
which medications you are taking.
At the moment, healthcare professionals are not able to access electronic
records held by other NHS organisations and usually share information from
your records by letter, fax or telephone. This can sometimes cause delays in
making sure the right people receive reliable, accurate information about you
and so may delay your treatment.
What is the Oxfordshire Care Summary?
Each healthcare organisation in Oxfordshire will continue to create a health
record for you using its own system.
The Oxfordshire Care Summary is a new way of sharing health information
locally. It will enable authorised healthcare professionals from local NHS
organisations in Oxfordshire to see a single electronic view of specific,
up-to-date, clinical information from these separate systems.
Why is this happening?
When a healthcare professional has instant access to reliable health information
about you, they will be able to deliver safer, faster treatment. It will mean fewer
duplicate investigations, a reduction in the number of repeated questions to
patients and will help avoid unnecessary admissions to hospital.

What information will be available
in my Oxfordshire Care Summary?
A standard set of information will be available to be viewed by authorised
healthcare professionals in Oxfordshire. This will be pulled automatically from the
various electronic care records that local NHS organisations in Oxfordshire hold
about you. This information is not copied or stored in a new location; instead
a temporary view is merely displayed to the healthcare professional involved
in your treatment – it cannot be amended by them. The type of information
viewed on the Oxfordshire Care Summary will be agreed and reviewed regularly
by representatives of all healthcare organisations in Oxfordshire. For more
details, see www.oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk/healthrecords
Who will be able to see my
Oxfordshire Care Summary?
Healthcare professionals have always had a professional, ethical and legal
responsibility to keep your details secure.
When accessing your Oxfordshire Care Summary, they:
Must be directly involved in your care;
Must have your permission each time they view your records;
except in exceptional circumstances e.g. in a medical emergency
Must be a registered, authorised user with a secure username
and password;
Must only view the information required to do their job. By law,
everyone working for or on behalf of the NHS must respect your
confidentiality and keep all information about you secure;
Will have their access electronically monitored.
What is the difference between
the Oxfordshire Care Summary
and the Summary Care Record?
The Summary Care Record is a national system which
will support patient care in urgent and emergency care
settings. It will be accessible by any authorised health
professional across the country. It holds very limited
information:
medication,
reactions to medicines,
allergies
he
or
es
bsite
Please take time to read this leaflet.
You need to make a choice.
hs.uk NHS Summary
Care Record
Your emergency
care summary
The Oxfordshire Care Summary will
only be available to support local
NHS care in Oxfordshire and
will have more detailed
information than in the
Summary Care Record.
These measures mean that your information is stored safely, stays private
and can only be looked at by those healthcare professionals supporting
or providing your care. The NHS Care Record Guarantee for England and
the NHS Constitution both set out how the NHS should handle your
records to protect your privacy. You can view these documents at
www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk/security/

Your choices
You can choose whether you want a national Summary Care Record and
whether you want an Oxfordshire Care Summary.
The local
Oxfordshire
Care Summary
The national
Summary
Care Record
This is what you need to do
Will children have an
Oxfordshire Care Summary?
The same choices exist for children under 16 as for adults.
If you as a parent or guardian do not wish your child to have an Oxfordshire
Care Summary or a Summary Care Record, you should follow the steps on
the page opposite on their behalf. If you think your child is mature enough
to make their own decision, you should share this information with them.
Additional opt-out forms are available at
www.oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk/healthrecords
or from your GP surgery
YES I want one
YES I want one
Do nothing. This will happen automatically.
YES I want one
NO thanks
NO thanks
NO thanks
YES I want one
NO thanks
We can arrange this for you.
Phone 01865 428886, email
health.records@oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk
or visit ‘Your Choices’ at
www.oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk/healthrecords
We can arrange this for you.
Phone 01865 428886, email
health.records@oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk
or visit ‘Your Choices’ at
www.oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk/healthrecords
Fill out an opt-out form for the national
Summary Care Record - this will
automatically mean that you will NOT have
an Oxfordshire Care Summary too. All
Oxfordshire residents aged 16 and over will
be mailed an opt-out form at the beginning
of April 2012
You can change your mind at any time by contacting your GP surgery.

Where can I get more information?
For the latest information about the local Oxfordshire Care Summary, please
phone 01865 428886, email health.records@oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk or visit
www.oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk/healthrecords
If you have any questions about the national Summary mary
Care Record please phone the dedicated information on
line on 0300 123 3020. Or look out for this leaflet
at your GP surgery.
www.oxfordshirepct.nhs.uk/healthrecords
he
or
es
bsite
Please take time to read this leaflet.
You need to make a choice.
hs.uk NHS Summary
Care Record
Your emergency
care summary
If you would like this
information in a different
language or format,
including large print or
audio, please contact
01865 334641
Feb 2012

Please take time to read this leaflet.
You need to make a choice.
NHS Summary
Care Record
Your emergency
care summary

We (the NHS in England) are
introducing a new electronic
record called the Summary
Care Record (SCR), which
will be used to support your
emergency care.
Please read this leaflet carefully. It will give you
information about the new Summary Care Record –
your emergency care summary.
Summary Care Records

Introduction to Summary Care Records
Today, records are kept in all the places where you receive care.
These places can usually only share information from your records
by letter, email, fax or phone. At times, this can slow down
treatment and sometimes information can be hard to access.
We are introducing Summary Care Records to improve the safety
and quality of patient care. Because the Summary Care Record
is an electronic record it will give healthcare staff faster, easier
access to essential information about you, to help provide you
with safe treatment when you need care in an emergency or
when your GP practice is closed.
We are telling you about this before a Summary Care Record is
made for you, so that you have time to think about your choices.
You can choose to have a Summary Care Record:
You do not need to do anything. This will happen automatically.
Healthcare staff will ask your permission every time they look at
your Summary Care Record.
You can choose not to have a Summary Care Record:
If you don’t want a Summary Care Record, you need to let your
GP practice know by filling in and returning an opt-out form.
See pages 6/7 for more information about this.
2/3

About your Summary Care Record
If you decide to have a Summary Care Record it will contain
important information about any medicines you are taking,
allergies you suffer from and any bad reactions to medicines
that you have had.
Giving healthcare staff access to this information can prevent
mistakes being made when caring for you in an emergency or
when your GP practice is closed.
Your Summary Care Record will also include your name,
address, date of birth and your unique NHS Number to help
identify you correctly.
You may want to add other details about your care to your
Summary Care Record. This will only happen if you ask for the
information to be included. You should discuss your wishes with
the healthcare staff treating you.
How will Summary Care Records
help me?
• Healthcare staff will have quicker access to information
about any medicines you are taking, allergies you suffer
from and any bad reactions to medicines you have had.
• This means they can provide you with safer care during an
emergency, when your GP practice is closed or when you are
away from home in another part of England.
• You will be able to look at your Summary Care Record at
any time at a secure website called HealthSpace. You must
register to use HealthSpace to keep it as secure as possible.
More information about HealthSpace is available at
www.healthspace.nhs.uk or from your local NHS.
Summary Care Records

How will you control who can see my
Summary Care Record?
Healthcare staff who can see your Summary Care Record:
• need to be directly involved in caring for you;
• need to have an NHS Smartcard with a chip and passcode
(like a bank card and PIN);
• will only see the information they need to do their job; and
• will have their details recorded.
Healthcare staff will ask your permission every time they need
to look at your Summary Care Record. If they cannot ask you,
for example if you are unconscious or in certain circumstances
such as a court order, healthcare staff may look at your record
without asking you. If they have to do this, they will make a
note on your record.
How will you protect my
confidentiality?
By law, everyone working for us or on our behalf must respect
your confidentiality and keep all information about you secure.
We publish the NHS Care Record Guarantee for England. This says
how the NHS will collect, store and allow access to your electronic
records and your choices for how your information is stored and
looked at. If you would like a copy, there is information on how
to get one on the back of this leaflet.
No matter how careful we are, there are always risks when
information is held on computers as there is when they are
held on paper. In every place we treat you there are people
responsible for protecting your confidentiality. Ask your local
NHS for more information.
4/5

What are my choices?
• You can choose to have a Summary Care Record:
You do not need to do anything. This will happen
automatically.
• You can choose not to have a Summary Care Record:
You need to let your GP practice know by filling in and
returning an opt-out form.
You can change your mind at any time
• If you choose not to have a Summary Care Record but then
change your mind later we can still make one for you.
You need to let your GP practice know.
• If you choose after we have made your Summary Care Record
that you do not want it, you need to tell your GP practice. We
will make sure that healthcare staff who try to look at your
Summary Care Record will not be able to. We will only make
your record available again if whoever wants to see it asks in
writing and investigation has found it necessary.
• You can ask to have your record deleted, but that may not be
possible if the record has already been used to give you care.
Children and the Summary Care Record
Children will automatically have a Summary Care Record
made for them.
If you do not want your child to have a Summary Care Record
you will need to fill in an opt-out form on behalf of your
child and return it to your child’s GP practice. In some
circumstances your GP may feel it is in your child’s best
interests to have a Summary Care Record. For example,
if your child has a serious allergy that healthcare staff
treating your child should know about.
Summary Care Records

What do I do now?
If you are happy for us to make a Summary Care Record for you,
you do not need to do anything, we will automatically make
one for you.
If you do not want us to make a Summary Care Record for you,
please fill in an opt-out form and return it to your GP practice.
Opt-out forms are available at www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk/options
or your GP practice, or you can ask us to send you one by phoning
the Summary Care Record Information Line on 0300 123 3020.
Where can I get more information?
For more information about Summary Care Records and your choices:
• phone the Summary Care Record Information Line on
0300 123 3020;
• contact your local Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS)
www.pals.nhs.uk; or
• visit www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk.
6/7

You can get a copy of the
‘The NHS Care Record
Guarantee for England’ or
leaflets in other languages
and formats from our website
at www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk
The Summary Care Record
Information Line has translation
and text phone services.
Please keep this leaflet safe
4706 English (November 2010)