Confidentiality

Your Confidentiality

You have a right to expect that information about you will be held in confidence by your Doctors and the Appletree staff. Confidentiality is central to trust.

Within the Practice the following people can access your information: doctors, GP Registrars, nurses, health visitors, midwife, administration staff, medicines management team and medical students. Also the General Medical Council (GMC) and Deanery at the University of Nottingham Medical School (see Training Practice) can access records for quality assurance purposes, as can the financial auditor from NHS England. Each of these people/bodies has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential.

Staff will maintain your right to privacy and not discuss your illness with other staff or Doctors within hearing distance of other people. If you wish to speak privately with a Receptionist, please do ask and you will be taken to a private room to talk.

However, there are circumstances when medical information may be disclosed. Information about patients is requested for a wide variety of purposes including education, research, public health surveillance, clinical audit, administration and planning. In ALL of these circumstances we apply the following rules:

  • We seek patient’s consent to disclosure
  • We anonymise data where unidentifiable data will serve the purpose
  • We keep disclosures to the minimum necessary

You have a right of access to your health records.

You can object to information being shared with others involved in the provision of your care, except where lack of disclosure would be likely to cause serious harm to the physical or mental health of either you or any other person.

The Practice complies with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)  & Data Protection Act 2018 and the NHS Confidentiality Code of Practice.